Moonlight and Steel
by MidKnight Rider
Summary: I finally put this in chronological order a while ago. A series of adventures and episode tags/missing scenes that take place over the course of the series. All Jack&Sam, with a sprinkling of original characters, lot of whumping, adventure and lots of romance. Thanks so much for reading.
1. Chapter 1

Moonlight and Steel - finally in chronological order. Thanks everyone who has been reading and everyone who took time to review. It is much appreciated.

(0)

The pain was sudden and immediate, more shocking than he had imagined it would be. Jack O'Neill had suffered torture at the hands of people who relished their work and took delight in their skill.

He was very _very _glad that no one had ever introduced the fire worms of PK2-7234 to earth, or to the Goa'uld.

It was flames racing from the bite to his shoulder and into his chest. It was hot knives across flayed skin. It crackled like dark energy along every nerve ending and threatened to bring him to his knees.

Air Force indoctrination kept him from screaming, but not from yelling.

"_Daniel_!"

At least he hoped it sounded more like a yell than screaming. It brought Daniel skidding through the door, barely ducking before hitting his head on the top of the archway.

Finding Jack bent over nearly double, clutching his hand, Daniel gasped.

"What the hell? _Jesus_, Jack, did one of those things _bite _you?"

"I let it," Jack ground the words out from between clenched teeth.

"You…what?" Daniel stammered.

He was close to Jack now, trying to reach for his wrist to see the damage. Jack shoved him away.

"Go…find…Carter…tell her I said…absolutely…_not!"_

"Jack…" Daniel started to protest.

O'Neill grabbed a fistful of Daniel's desert tan t-shirt.

"GO!"

Wow, _that _was the voice that must not be disobeyed.

Daniel turned, ducked back out the archway and hollered, "Teal'c!" as he ran across the common area of the village, heading for the ritual temple. The Jaffa came around the corner of one of the adobe houses at a dead run.

"What is wrong?"

"Jack let one of the fire worms bite him! He needs first aid…." Daniel paused and looked conflicted, "He also wants me to stop Sam."

"It is too late to stop Captain Carter," Teal'c said grimly, "The ritual has already begun."

(0)

Several hours earlier…

PK2-7234 reminded Daniel uncomfortably of Abydos on a much smaller scale. The written language was the same. The squat, desert-born houses made of adobe were the same. The tents – ready to be dismantled at a moment's notice if a sandstorm appeared on the horizon, the people all tough and hardy and dark-skinned and dark-eyed….

The main village was about 10 kilometers from the Star Gate. They might not have even visited 7234 except for the groupings of fresh offerings and obvious signs of life the MALP had revealed.

From the moment the UAV had sent back the images of the village Daniel had been unable to breathe much less speak. It had hit him hard.

But nothing has been as shocking as finding the small shrine in the center of the village – the shrine to their goddess, Amaunet.

He had stayed on his feet mostly with the help of Jack's hand under his elbow, until the surge of adrenaline had gone through him and he had found not only breath but voice and within the space of about fifteen minutes, Daniel had won over the hearts and minds of the locals and they were being treated to a welcoming feast.

Jack had seen Daniel do the same thing on countless worlds, but he had never seen him do it with his eyes so bright and the color in his face so high.

Things had been going very well. Daniel had convinced them that they had come to find Amaunet - which was certainly true in his case – and then he had discovered there was a temple to her, a huge place of worship, and then he got _really _excited….

Except the locals refused to take them to it.

Unlike Abydos, the people of PK2-7234 worshipped a goddess and had developed a matriarchal society. It hadn't taken long to pick up on the fact that the men deferred to and served the women. Even questions to Daniel were first directed to Sam and Daniel hadn't been able to do anything to convince them Teal'c, with the gold insignia that identified him as the First Prime of Amaunet's consort, wasn't under Carter's command but O'Neill's.

The village Headwoman, Setapep, had patiently explained to Daniel that he and his team were not the honored of Amaunet and only those led by someone who had gone through the rite of '_Soul Cleansing' _could enter the Temple_. _Since Sam had never gone through the ritual, and no one could convince them Jack was their leader – which wouldn't have helped anyway since he hadn't done the rite and besides the rite was only for women, Setamun had been polite but firm. Their sacred Temple was off limits.

Sam had insisted on speaking privately to Setapep about the ritual.

_Sir, I don't think it can hurt to find out what the ritual is….._

Forced to agree, O'Neill had let her go. He was driven as much by their mission objectives as by his personal desire to find Skaara and Sha're.

She had joined up with the men afterwards.

Daniel watched her carefully as she sat down in the empty spot around the campfire they had saved for her, in the makeshift camp they had created. Daniel had coffee going already and he poured some into the mug she preferred and handed it to her. He suspected that Sam felt out of her league. Dealing with and making sense of local culture was _his_ job.

She sat there, holding her coffee mug between both hands as if they were cold, and staring into the fire.

"Carter?" Jack said, drawing her eyes to him.

"Sir?"

"The secret to coffee is, you know, to _drink_ it."

Sam's eyes flickered away, as if she was afraid of revealing too much.

"Yes, sir," she said.

Daniel rolled his eyes at Jack but noticed Sam smiling slightly as she brought the coffee cup to her lips. Had she always done that? Smile at Jack's completely offbeat humor? Daniel didn't know what it meant, but he wasn't that unaware of subtle communication clues, body language, fleeting changes in facial expression that often said more than the words and spoken languages that he loved. He had just really never noticed before, if Sam was amused by Jack enough to let it show.

Daniel had noticed that sometimes Jack looked at Sam a lot more often than he probably realized he did. There were a whole lot of men who looked at Sam, so maybe that wasn't the point.

Jack let her take a few long swallows and then said, "So?"

"Sir?"

"What did you find out about this ritual?"

"Oh!"

Sam looked at Jack, held his eyes in silence and suddenly, for one brief voyeuristic moment…. Daniel thought he was looking at something he shouldn't be. He looked away deliberately and caught Teal'c's eye. The single raised eyebrow was eloquent.

But maybe it was nothing.

It was probably nothing…..

"The ritual involves being brought to the ceremony room by a group of women who have already experienced it and then putting your hand in a basket of sand with something they call mek kot…."

She paused and looked at Daniel but Teal'c answered.

"Fire worms."

Jack's eyebrows lifted to his hair line. "And you stick your hand in this basket with them?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"And?"

"And they bite you and it hurts for a while and then it stops and you're considered one of the 'Cleansed'. Then they'll take me to the Temple and I can lead all of you. "

Jack stared at her for a while, waiting and when she didn't say anything he demanded,

"That's it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How big are these worms?"

"Couple of inches. They keep some in baskets of sand that they showed me. It's just a worm."

"How many are used in the ritual?"

"Three or four I think."

"How much does it hurt?"

Sam shrugged. "It's supposed to prepare women for childbirth."

Jack didn't say anything, for a long time. Daniel rushed in to fill the silence.

"As a 'rite of passage' ritual it's actually pretty simple. In Western Australia, the Warlpiri initiation rituals take place over weeks and even months. There's one dance that goes for days and the rituals themselves often involve great pain and circumcision…'

Jack held up a hand. "Uht!"

Daniel broke off instantly.

"TMI?" he asked.

"Ya think?" Jack shot back.

There was a moment of uncomfortable stillness. Sam looked at Jack and Jack looked back at her and for once Daniel had no idea what the conversation was about.

"Sam," Daniel said, finally, "You don't have to do this."

It wasn't his call, but he had a feeling Jack would go along with him on this.

Sam lifted her head and turned towards his voice. She looked straight across the fire at Daniel. Her wide, expressive eyes said, _yes I do._

Out loud she said, "I know. But I want to."

Something caught Daniel's ear, something wrong in her voice - a flat tone he'd never heard before, an indefinable absence of her usual warmth and willingness to be part of the team. She shifted uncomfortably and her eyes begged him to understand.

He did.

"And I know you want to, and why. But I don't want it to cause you pain, no matter how fleeting or how simple the ritual sounds."

"Daniel…"

"Sam…."

"For cryin' out loud," Jack interrupted. "Is this about Jolinar?"

Daniel glanced at him sharply. For all that Jack often appeared half asleep and more interested in the ice hockey score or the last episode of Simpsons, Daniel knew there wasn't anything about his team that he missed.

There probably wasn't anything about…. Well, _anything_ that Jack missed.

Jack knew, even if he had not been in the same room with them the one time she and Daniel had discussed it, that Sam had never been able to access the one memory of Jolinar's that would have meant so much. Jolinar had claimed to know where Amaunet was, had died before telling them – and Sam had never been able to remember it – not in dreams, not under hypnosis, not using any method they knew.

They had tried. _God,_ how they had tried.

Daniel had forgiven her, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Sam didn't forgive herself.

"I mean it, Sam," Daniel said, and he did. It wasn't a statement he was making by rote, filling some need for them to exchange platitudes before getting on with their mission. SG1 didn't do that, had never done that.

Jack was watching them carefully; and Daniel knew what Jack knew – that Sam did not process her failures the way the rest of her team did. He and Jack and Teal'c had all learned to internalize their pain. The things they couldn't change became part of the strength. Their losses were the reinforcing strands that made them impossible to snap.

Sam_ carried_ her failures, refusing to put them down, letting even the minor ones take on major significance. She was harder on herself than any of them had ever been. She ran a rod of steel down her emotional backbone and stood up under the weight, determined to bear it; needing action to keep wearing it down so that it was bearable.

At some point Daniel stopped looking at Sam and turned just his eyes to Jack so they could have that conversation. Sam needed to _do_ something, but Daniel didn't want to be her penance. Jack gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head that said, _Let her do it, _along with a kick-ass narrowing of his eyes that said _But _w_e don't have to like it._

"Do I have a go, sir?" Sam asked.

"You have a go," Jack said.


	2. Chapter 2

For a long time the only sounds coming from the ceremonial house were the constant, low rhythm of drum beats and the chanting of the women. Jack, Teal'c and Daniel hovered outside the entrance, prevented from forcible going in by four guards. Granted it was four guards they could take if they really wanted. But they were armed with scimitar-shaped swords that were probably made of this planet's version of bronze and O'Neill was still suffering. Daniel would have followed their lead if Jack and Teal'c had decided to use the military method of solving a problem.

Since they weren't hearing any sounds of Sam being in obvious distress, Daniel managed to keep Teal'c and Jack from simply beating their way in.

He suspected that Jack had caved because he wasn't doing all that well himself. He was feverish and still obviously in pain. Teal'c had sought help from the locals and was given a basket of root vegetables, told to mash one into a pulp and apply the paste to Jack's entire hand. While Daniel had been searching through back packs to find something to mash them with, Teal'c had pulverized one in his bare fist.

Jack had allowed the paste and the bandage that they wrapped around his hand. Jack had gotten a shot in the thigh with an epi pen only because Teal'c had done it without asking and Jack had been writhing on the ground with his eyes closed at the time. He refused everything else, every piece of first aid they had, including morphine shots, cold packs and antibiotics. No amount of pleading or frustration on Daniel's part had changed Jack's mind. It was all to be saved for Carter. Period. No more discussion. Say another word and _die,_ Daniel.

It was more than that, Daniel knew. Jack embraced pain. He would fight through it himself, using it to make him stronger. He didn't want a kind hand, or sympathy or relief. He wanted the agony to stay armored. He'd been through this before. It was how he survived. This was especially true if one of his team was suffering the same fate. No way for Daniel to spin the conversation in the way he wanted it to go. Diplomacy didn't always work on Jack.

Who was he kidding? Diplomacy _never_ worked with Jack. Honesty, brutal and frank and bottom-lined did. But spinning? Never.

The drums and chanting had almost convinced Daniel that the ritual didn't actually include being bitten. Maybe the worms ignored a hand coming down into their sand, maybe there weren't live worms in there at all, maybe it was just metaphor…..

Then the drums and chanting stopped. The silence was maddening.

The door opened and Sam appeared in the opening. The guards stepped to one side and bowed.

With no idea what to expect, the men stared at her, waiting for some sign some clue. Sam's hand was a mess – already swollen, veins throbbing, red and black and blue, with blood trickling from half a dozen small puncture wounds. The rest of her was winter-moon pale and her eyes were glazed.

The guards began escorting her towards a house. She fell in behind them. Daniel and Jack flanked her, with Teal'c behind her.

"Sir," she said in a low strangled voice.

"Here," Jack answered and Daniel thought that was an odd way for him to respond.

"I really need to take my hand out of the sand now. Okay?" she sounded desperate.

Daniel cast an anxious look over his shoulder at Teal'c, one that said _what the hell _and _please don't fall apart on me; you're the only one I have left…._

There was comfort in the steady stare Teal'c returned.

"Sure," Jack said, gently, "Take it out whenever you want."

"I just really need to," she insisted.

Sam was delirious. Pure adrenaline was keeping her on her feet and moving her, zombie-like, forward. Daniel found he was shaking suddenly. He hadn't realized how much he depended on the military members of their team being indestructible – even Sam, maybe especially Sam, who tried so hard not to be 'the girl' and Daniel respected that, encouraged it because he thought that was what she needed. But even now, thinking he might be getting a misty glimpse of understanding of the military mindset – random moments connecting, actions taking on different meanings in his too-active brain - he almost jumped out of his skin when Jack snarled,

"_Captain Carter!"_

Sam's steps faltered and her head turned slowly in the direction of her CO's voice. Her movements were heavy, deliberate, as if moving through the air was too much effort.

Jack - face flaming with fever, skin paper-dry, dark eyes narrowed to slits as he fought his own pain - barked at her like a drill sergeant,

"Take your hand out of the basket, _now, Captain. _That's an order!"

Sam swallowed. Her eyes flickered frantically back and forth in delirium for a brief, heartbreaking second. Her face became almost doll-like, porcelain skin now dotted with bright pink high on her cheekbones. Her eyes were glassy and vacant, already too incredible to look at for very long, now too shocking to look away from.

Somewhere behind those lovely eyes was a brain and thought processes to rival the best the Earth had ever had to offer and it was being derailed by pain.

And Daniel didn't miss the fact that the whip-sharpness of Jack's voice hadn't reached his dark eyes. Those were drenched in misery.

"Yes, sir," she said, swallowing again, "Thank you sir."

They made it to the squat adobe building they had been told was the Place of Meditation – even Jack had caught the words kel-no-reem and understood the meaning. The guards positioned themselves in two rows of two as Sam went inside, her team following her.

She stopped in the middle of the room, staring straight ahead, looking lost and robotic and oh-so-fragile.

The room was basic – a wide, low shelf made of the same adobe with a mattress of straw-stuffed linen. Baskets of fruits and tall, elegant jugs that held either water or wine lined one wall. There were ceramic bowls stacked neatly in columns according to size against the wall. Straw stuffed pillows were scattered throughout.

"Sit down, Carter," Jack said, cautiously motioning with his head to indicate the bed.

"Yes, sir," Carter answered, and promptly collapsed into the middle of the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

Daniel and Teal'c had both surged forward to catch her and got there only in time to stop her from falling to the side. Jack also moved to intercept her fall, too fast. The color drained from his face. He swayed dizzily and would have fallen on the other three had Daniel not risen to his feet again and caught him.

Hands firmly on Jack's shoulders, Daniel backed him to the bed. One simple shove had Jack sitting on the edge. Lifting Jacks' legs, Daniel had him sprawling on his back and sinking in the mattress.

"Move over."

"Why?"

"There's only one bed," Daniel explained. "And I'm not a biologist but this floor is sand and I don't think we want to risk that there might be fire worms living in it."

Even in his pain-wracked brain, Jack understood what they intended to do. He tried to get up.

"No," he said, "No no no…"

"Shut up, Jack," Daniel said, and _wow_, did it feel really good to have that shoe on the other foot. "You and Sam have shared a tent together. What's the damned difference?"

It was true. Since the military saw fit to only let them pack two double tents, it was a toss-up who got to share with who. On any given mission, Teal'c would normally sit outside and meditate, leaving one tent for Carter. But often weather conditions required them to share. Jack had shrugged it off, saying it didn't mean a thing and it was like the Beatles sharing motel rooms on tour and it didn't matter if he wound up with Paul, George or John.

Which had prompted Teal'c to blankly ask why beetles had names and went on tour; and Daniel to wonder which one _he_ was and why Jack thought of himself as Ringo…..

Teal'c had scooped Carter up and deposited her on the mattress beside Jack. She lay flat on her back in the same position in which Teal'c had put her down, limp and listless.

"O'Neill?" Teal'c rumbled.

"It's fine," Jack growled back, which really meant _It's not fine but I've had the crap kicked out of me and she's had worse and there isn't anything we can do about it anyway….._

And Daniel – the word geek – wondered when SG1's conversations had become almost entirely subtext. He got out the first aid kit and crushed the cold pack to activate the chemicals. Sam hissed sharply through her teeth when he put the pack on her hand. Teal was already crushing another root in his bare fist, with far more enthusiasm than Daniel thought was really necessary.

While Teal'c finished that, Daniel gave Sam a shot of morphine and slammed the epi pen into her thigh and Jack rolled over on his left side to give Sam more room. With nowhere to put his own pulsing hand, Jack was forced to let it rest gingerly on her hip.

Jack closed his eyes, breathing harshly through his teeth. He was in pain. Sam was in so much pain she had moved away from the reality of it into a strange kind of waking unconsciousness. She was staring at the ceiling and Daniel knew she was very far away. He took his glasses off and rubbed briefly at the moisture in his eyes.

She had done this for him. Jack had let her do it, for him. Daniel already knew what guilt felt like. He hadn't needed a reminder.

He was organizing their first aid supplies into a basket when Teal'c finished taking out his frustration on two of the roots and went to apply the paste to Sam's hand. Cold packs, morphine, two epi pens left, antibiotics, nothing he could just knock her out with but no help for that and, geez, when had _he_ become Janet.

Then Teal'c had Sam's hand cleaned with alcohol wipes, slathered in pulpy goo and covered in a bandage with the cold pack on top. The morphine might have been taking effect at that point because Sam closed her eyes and tears leaked in individual drops from the corners.

"Teal'c?" Jack asked, demand in his voice overriding the pain.

"O'Neill?" he responded.

"How long did they tell you she would be like this?"

"A day," Teal'c's voice was laced with displeasure.

"Daniel!"

Jack moved just his eyes to pin Daniel. There was nothing in Jack's eyes now. No ferocity, no aggression, no murderous glint - nothing but a flat soullessness. Daniel understood the phrase now, about staring down the blank, black barrel of a gun.

He had to moisten his throat to speak. He felt a chill centipede-slither down his spine.

"Yeah?"

"How long is a day on this mother—"he broke off abruptly, swallowed and said, "How long?"

It was a question Jack would normally ask Sam, who could figure these things out in fifteen earth minutes by tracking the sun's movements on any planet they got sent to, doing the math in her head.

"Sam told me it's about 19 earth hours," Daniel answered.

Jack winced and Daniel thought it probably had nothing to do with the pain in his own hand.

"How long has it been?"

Daniel checked his watch.

"Forty two minutes," he whispered, and then added, "I can supply you with the appropriate curses in Mandarin if you want."

It turned out, given the long string of bright colored language that Jack proceeded to mutter, he really didn't need any help in that department, even from the team's 'word guy.'

"You should rest, O'Neill," Teal'c rumbled when the diatribe finally stopped.

"Yeah," Daniel agreed, trying for levity, softening the anxiety, "You get to bunk with George this time."

O'Neill rolled his eyes. "She's Paul," he informed them

_Of course_, Daniel thought, _she's the cute one, which makes me George the quiet sensitive one, which makes Teal'c..… John. Lennon. No that can't be right….._

His scattered, meaningless thoughts dissolved into nothing in the next moment as Sam suddenly said,

"Sir… Jack?"

And he answered once again, "Here."

Sam moved with the grace and lightness of a granite carving, a statue fighting its own inertia. But she moved, shifted closer to O'Neill, seeking comfort and his physical presence as if she did it all the time. She sighed heavily and appeared to finally surrender to unconsciousness. Jack slipped his arm under her neck, molded his body to hers. His lids slid shut over the black depths of his eyes.

"Carter…" it was a soft exhalation that came just before sleep and Daniel shut his brain off sharply before it had time to process the subtext of that particular utterance.

In the silence that followed, Daniel and Teal'c held perfectly still and looked at each other and wondered just what the hell they were seeing.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack woke up next to her. His bandaged hand was still lying on her hip like a small white flag claiming territory. It was warm in the small adobe room and from the slant of light coming in the window told him it was late afternoon. There were sounds of movement and life in the village beyond the window and the sound of someone's deep rhythmic breathing coming from the floor beside the bed.

Jack cautiously lifted his head to find out who was down there and found Daniel, asleep, spread-eagled in exhaustion, with one arm over his eyes and his glasses clutched in his fist. Momentarily alarmed, Jack took a closer look and was relieved to find that Daniel was on top of two tarps, an emergency blanket and the thick padding of his sleeping bag – the desert too bred into his soul to take a chance of sleeping on a sand floor.

There was no sign of Teal'c.

Jack let his head fall back onto the mattress, still moving slowly so he didn't disturb Sam.

The previous day, into the evening and through the endless moon-drenched night, had been a waking nightmare of pain, shots, cold packs and frequent changes of bandages and mashed roots. Jack had watched the room go from white sunlight to blazing orange and rose to dusty gray and finally to black with his hand and soul on fire

Sometimes it was Teal'c who woke them and most often it was guilt-wracked Daniel, still keeping vigil beside them even in his exhaustion.

Sometimes it was both.

And sometimes Sam had woken all of them, when the morphine was wearing off, or pain and drugs combined to give her dreams that had her thrashing and crying out. Sometimes the venom in her system raised her fever to the point of violent shivering; and sometimes it raised his.

Sometimes he'd held her; and sometimes she had held him. But most of the long, bitter night, it seemed they had held each other.

Jack watched, without feeling much like moving at all, as a shaft of sunlight moved across the wall until it finally fell on them – on her, illuminating her, gilding her, turning her into something he could never understand, something more, something shining angelic and perfect.

_I adore you already….._

He hadn't then. He'd been hiding behind his glib tongue; behind the sarcasm that kept everyone at bay.

Now he wasn't so sure.

He's not the kind to lose himself, to forget where he was at any given moment, to forget who he is on the rare occasion that he remembers the man he has become. He isn't the kind to fall head over heels, or to have his heart overrule his head. He wasn't the kind of man who reached for what he could not have.

But now, this, for her….. Maybe that's exactly who he could be.

She was still asleep, looking as if she was finally at peace. There was a lock of platinum silk hair caught in her eyelashes and he couldn't stop himself from reaching out to brush it away with his thumb, careful not to let the bandage touch her face. His fingers pushed her bangs higher off her forehead.

And maybe it was his touch, as light as it was, that woke her, blinking and dazed for a moment. His hand was warm, the fingertips calloused but soft. His thumb moved along her cheekbone. His fingers rested on the smooth column of her throat, just behind her ear. Only the fact that his fingers were trapped in the bandage as high as his knuckles kept him from threading them through all that golden silk.

Sam's eyes met his, dark and light and the truth caught somewhere in between. Awareness bloomed like the desert after the rain and became real. Her breathing became deep and even, slow in a suspension of time that belonged only to them.

Jack couldn't breathe at all.

Words without sound… A conversation they've been trying not to have since Antarctica…. Because they are good soldiers and much too good at their jobs…and it will hurt… it will just hurt so goddamn much…..

_Want you…need you….never knew the skin on your face was so smooth, your hair so soft….need you…YOU….._

_Can't have…..hate this…impossible…._

_Want you…need you…_

_Oh god….love you…._

_No…_

Sam closed her eyes, turned on her side and tucked her head under his chin.

Jack exhaled as if he had been underwater, wrapped both arms around her and stared over her head at the sunlight striping the opposite wall. He needed to hold her. He needed to keep this moment and dip it in amber sunlight and preserve it forever before….

Before….

Just before….

_Need you….want you…._

_Oh, god…._

_Love you…._

(0)

A/N – If Moonlight and Steel was being written in any kind of chronological order, this would be the first chapter. This is the earliest Star Gate thing I have ever written


	4. Chapter 4

Daniel paused in his work long enough to wipe the sheen of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Even in the temple, it was hot – hotter than the Sahara, hotter than Abydos. He sat down and rested his back against the cool stone wall, feeling the triangle of dampness between his shoulder blades and the deep cuts of the hieroglyphs.

He pulled the bandana off his head, fluffed the sweat slicked strands of his hair. Then he opened one of the canteens of water and tipped it up, taking a long drink before pouring a good half of the remaining liquid over the top of his head. Still dripping for those few precious seconds before the water evaporated away in the dry heat, he shaded his eyes and looked up at the brilliant sky through the slots in the temple ceiling.

It was hours until this planet's version of midday, but the unrelenting heat hadn't lessened any, and the sun was getting high in its arc; hours away from its slope down into evening, when the temperature would be something closer to livable.

Turning his head to the side, Daniel watched a Jack silently for a few minutes. O'Neill was bored. The initial excitement of finally reaching the Temple of Amaunet, after a grueling march over miles of endless sand in the predawn hours, had worn off. It was this part of their job that didn't include Jack – the research, the tedious translations. Ordinarily he would stand watch, but out here there was nothing to stand watch against. He had sent Teal'c and Carter to explore the massive complex and then proceeded to prowl back and forth across the entrance, and up and down the long aisle from the entrance to the ivory and gold statue of the goddess at the end of the temple.

Daniel knew better than to stalk after him and demand to know what was wrong, because that was just going to drive Jack further into his foul mood. So he bided his time and waited and did his job, fighting off the hope that the temple would reveal a timetable for Amaunet's visits, or at the very least another possible place that she might be.

Jack was more than bored. Daniel sensed it, but he didn't know what the more was. There had been something off since they had all gathered together again the day before – the evening before really – after Sam and Jack had returned to some form of normal after their ordeal. They had been feasted and celebrated and then watched a series of spirited wrestling matches. The winner would be given the privilege of taking the new members of their tribe to visit the sacred Temple.

Jack and Sam had stayed within each other's reach almost all evening, and on the march to the Temple. Never touching, hardly speaking, but a world of words in the occasional glances and the rare long looks. Unfortunately, they were speaking a language in which Daniel was not fluent and he felt a little lost.

Jack felt Daniel's eyes on him and finally turned around.

"You okay?" Jack grunted.

"Just taking a water break," Daniel held out the canteen. "You want some?"

In answer he got another grunt, which he took to mean yes. Jack joined him, sinking down on the smooth stone floor and taking the offered canteen. Daniel tied his bandana back around his head and watched Jack out of the corner of his eye as he drank and stared straight ahead, restless even now that he was sitting still.

Under his lazy and at times distracted demeanor, Jack never missed a thing. SG1 had survived by knowing how to read each other. Daniel couldn't help but react to the nervous restlessness.

"You hungry?" he asked.

"No," Jack said. "Yes. Maybe."

Daniel snorted. "Glad we cleared that up. Remind me not to ask such difficult questions. I'll try something easier next time."

Jack shot him a look that, at last, had a glimmer of humor in it.

"I could eat," he admitted.

"That's all I wanted to know," Daniel said.

He dug two snack MREs out of his backpack and brought them to Jack. One was bread with cheese spread. The other was snack crackers. They opened both and split them evenly without discussion. They'd done it too many times before.

Daniel watched Jack carefully and Jack pretended not to notice. Jack inhaled and seemed as if he was about to speak, then stopped; and Daniel pretended not to notice _that._

"How's your hand?" Daniel asked finally.

Jack looked at his right hand as if it belonged to someone else. The area around the bite was still red. But it only annoyed him like a fading bee sting now and a healthy glob of hydrocortisone cream was all it needed. He shrugged.

"Fine," Jack said. It seemed like that was all he was going to say for a few moments until he added, "At least Carter was smart enough to offer the little demons her _left_ hand."

It was the longest thing Daniel had heard Jack say for at least a day. "No one ever accused Sam of not being smart," he observed.

Jack grunted again and then the silence returned. Daniel wondered if Jack's inability to say anything was nothing more than his normal reticence, or if Jack wasn't talking because even _he_ wasn't sure what had happened in the last few days.

"You're not mad at her are you?" Daniel asked, hesitantly.

Fathomless dark eyes pinned him.

"At Carter? No, I'm not mad."

"Good," Daniel said.

"Are you?"

"Mad?" Daniel squeaked, eyes darting behind his glasses in confusion. "At Sam? God, no. I guess I should be ready to throttle her for going through that, but I'm just so…so…I don't know. No one ever did anything like that for me before. Ever. I just want to find something here, something to make it worth it."

Another grunt. Another moment of silence. Then, "She's got nothing if not a steel backbone."

Daniel wasn't sure what to say to that. Jack finished his crackers, stretched his long legs out in front of him, rested his head on the wall of glyphs, stared up at the slits in the ceiling, and then asked, "What have you found?"

"So far just the typical stuff," Daniel said. His voice changed to one of recitation. "Amaunet, You Who protect the Gods, and Who guard the Gods with Your shadows, whose roots are in the beginning of time, grant us your mercy, health and protection…."

"Yeah, yeah," Jack said. "I get it."

Footsteps alerted them that Sam and Teal'c were approaching. They both looked up and Daniel thought he heard Jack's breathing falter a little bit. He looked at Jack quickly but he was getting to his feet far more smoothly than his bad knee should allow and then moving across the Temple to join the rest of their team.

Daniel scrambled ungracefully to his feet and hurried to catch up.

(0)

_She looks incredible._ Jack's thoughts got ahead of him before he could stop them. Defiantly, even to himself, he added, _Well, she does_….

Her stride was long and confident, entirely unchanged by her ordeal – or maybe perversely she had been strengthened by it.

She was haloed by the sun, speaking animatedly to Teal'c, eyes sparkling, strands of hair-hair that had been much softer than he had ever imagined- reflecting the light. Her body was slender, strong and incredible.

_Nothing happened, dammit_….

He could feel Daniel's eyes boring into the center of his back and was tempted to tell him to go back to reading the walls and quit trying to figure out Jack's life. As soon as _he_ got it he'd be sure to let Daniel know.

Maybe.

As he reached the spot where Teal'c and Sam were standing, Jack found that his throat had gone dry and his voice had deserted him. He was saved from having to say anything by Daniel.

"Did you find something?" he asked eagerly.

Teal'c's low, "Indeed," was a dramatic contrast to Daniel's naïve innocence.

Sam's expression melted into a smile that was brilliant and breathtaking. But her eyes were on Daniel.

"You're gonna like this," she promised.

"What?"

"Come on," she said. "We'll show you."

(0)

Sam had spared one quick glance for Jack and then dared not risk another. She kept her eyes firmly on Daniel and spoke only to him as they walked behind Teal'c, through the long, straight, low-ceilinged corridors that led to the back of the temple. They passed rooms full of grain and rooms that were empty – perhaps having once been used by priests and priestesses, or worshippers who had come long distances.

For all her concentration on Daniel, she was no less aware of Jack, walking just ahead of them with Teal'c. The awareness caused phantom sensations of warmth and the pressure of his arms around her, reminding her how she'd felt centered and safe in the closed circle of strength.

Jack would never overstep the boundaries imposed on them by the rank and title. Sam knew that. Neither would she. Neither of them would cross that line, though now it was faded, not as distinct as it had been before. Each mission, each moment spent off-world or having beer and pizza in his living room, had blurred that line.

Sam knew how this was going to end: Jack leaning up against her, pulling her close. Jack's mouth hungry and demanding on hers; hers surrendered and willing. Looking into each other's eyes again. One or the other pleading _don't stop, please don't stop._

After the last few days Sam had seen the inevitability of it.

The only thing that remained to be seen was how long it would take them to get there. There was no law of physics that she knew of to help her calculate how long they could keep something like this hovering in suspension, just out of reach.

But she knew that everything could only bend so far before it would break.

(0)

Sam and Teal'c led their teammates to a small room that could easily have been some kind of office. There were more hieroglyphics carved into the walls, most of them were readable only by Daniel.

But some of them leapt out with crystal clarity. Even Jack was riveted to the images.

"Gate addresses," Daniel breathed.

Sam's eyes were alight.

"So Skaara and Sha're could be on any of these other worlds, right?" she asked hopefully. "These are other centers of worship?"

"Yes," Daniel answered as his eyes rapidly took in the rest of the writing. "We need to record this."

"I already did," Sam said.

Daniel realized he was shaking. To anchor himself back to reality he turned and impulsively wrapped both arms around Sam and hugged her tight.

"Thank you," he said, still holding on.

"You're welcome," she whispered.

Something made Daniel look up. Maybe he felt Jack's eyes on him, the way he was sure Jack had felt him watching earlier. Jack normally wore expression as inscrutable as Teal'c's, but this time Daniel caught something else – the barest whisper of longing, misty regret, annoyance and frustration, defenselessness caught in darkness….

Daniel let go of Sam and stepped back from her. He looked at Jack, tilted his head and let his eyebrows furrow together in question.

Jack ignored him.

"Carter," he said.

"Sir," she turned sharply in his direction, faced him with chin high in perfect military precision.

Jack's voice softened. "Good job."

His statement was simple and straightforward, like their team, like their loyalty. The look that passed between Jack and Sam was not. The moment stretched, filled, overflowed with words unspoken.

Then it dissolved like sugar in water, still there but never to be seen in the same form again.

"I understand, sir," Sam whispered at last.

(0)

_Finis_


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter is a complete adventure, sometime in season four, after Sam's promotion to Major.

(0)

Daniel exhaled as if he had forgotten to breathe and pulled his glasses off. Drawing his knees to his chest, he wiped grit and water from his eyes. He didn't know if it was the dust aggravating his allergies; or tears. He was sick of the cave, sick of the artificial light, sick of sitting in dirt.

He was sick of being terrified and frustrated. He was deathly sick of the writing that covered the rocks and boulders in every inch of this cave, though he would have been shocked to hear himself say that just the day before.

They had found the cave on their first mission to Px4-1615 and Daniel had been quick to determine that it was a library, which had prompted Jack to mournfully intone,

"Oh god, someone said the 'L' word."

Left by the former inhabitants of this deserted world, the cave contained chiseled rock after rock. It was ingenious really. No tablets to carve out of stone, no paper to laboriously make from plants only to have it decay over time. The entire history of the planet, the lost people, carved into the natural rocks, stones and boulders.

It had been all they could do to drag him back to Earth. The rest of the team had been anxious to go back. PX4-1615 was hot, humid and steamy. He had begged Jack to let him stay and been met with one cold long hard stare.

"No one stays alone, Daniel. No one goes anywhere alone and no one stays anywhere alone."

It had been final. There were certain times when Jack would take no for an answer, even from his subordinates. This wasn't one of those times; and Daniel knew Jack wasn't above knocking him out and carrying him back to the Gate. He had brought one rock and hours of video recordings back with him and managed to decipher about a five dozen characters and as many words. It was like no other language he had encountered. He had then begged, groveled, pleaded, made a general pain in the ass of himself and all but sold his own soul to get Hammond to send him back. Since their primary objective was knowledge and technology to help them fight the Goa'uld, Px4-1615 had quickly gone far to the bottom of the list of places to revisit.

When solar activity meant their Stargate would be shut down for three days, Hammond had ordered a routine maintenance and security check; and finally consented to sending them back to PX4-1615 for research. They had been one of the last teams to be sent anywhere before the shut down – and all of them had gone to previously-visited, deserted, peaceful worlds for research and exploration.

Nothing was supposed to have gone wrong. Hell, Jack had even brought a fishing pole to see what was in the lake near the Gate. Twenty-six hours ago, Jack had been fishing, Teal'c had been watching Jack fish, Daniel had been delighted to be back amidst the rocks and writings and Sam had been collecting flora samples for possible medicinal value back home.

He had heard her screaming even deep inside the cave. The initial sound – meant only to cry for help, to alert that there was danger, had catapulted him to his feet so fast he'd almost hit his head on the ceiling. Heart pounding, blinking in the sudden brilliance as he burst from the cave entrance, there was just enough time to see Jack and Teal'c racing into the forest at the edge of the lake clearing. At that point the screaming had changed. The sound sent prickles of ice water down his back. Sam didn't scream, not like that.

They found Sam struggling violently in the grip of some horrible, awful evil – a creature of immense size that resembled nothing if not a giant earthworm with tentacles. It was huge, muddy black as if it were covered in dirt and oil. The earth around it was destroyed where it had emerged, making approach treacherous. One tentacle was wrapped around her waist, waving wildly. The other tentacles were reaching out for Jack and Teal'c, who were pointing weapons at it and nimbly evading its attempts to snag them. The thing had Sam at least two stories in the air. Instinctively now, Daniel reached for his gun.

"Hold fire!" Jack shouted.

Daniel looked at him, helpless and confused.

"It'll drop her!" Jack sounded furious.

On some unspoken signal, all three men charged the creature, trying to knock it off balance. A muffled roar escaped it. It seized O'Neill, picked him up and flung him into a tree.

"Jack!" Daniel shrieked. He was running for O'Neill when he saw the thick black tentacle snaking through the grass towards him. He sidestepped but not enough to avoid it entirely. The very tip wrapped around his ankle and yanked his feet out from under him. He landed on his back with bone-jarring impact and lay dazed for a moment.

He rolled over just in time to see Teal'c driving a broken tree branch into the creature's side. Apparently the Jaffa had decided that having it drop Carter was not as bad as having it continue to crush her.

Sam's screams increased as the creature inserted something from its tentacle into her arm. The anguish on her face tore at them. The creature held her for an agonizing moment longer, withdrew from her flesh and dropped her to the leaf-covered forest floor. Samantha fell like a stone through the branches, raining twigs and leaves on their heads. Jack and Teal'c managed to get under her and break her fall just in time. The creature seemed almost to deflate, sinking back into the ruined ground from which it had emerged with a sickening sucking sound. Dirt and debris poured into the hole in its wake.

Daniel had gathered her into his arms and lifted her up, carrying her a great distance from the hole before putting her back down. Sam was as limp as a discarded rag doll, unconscious, pale and cold. Daniel held her tightly, one hand on her forehead pressing her against his shoulder as Jack tore the fabric away from the wound on her arm. It didn't look that bad – two large punctures dripping blood. Teal'c vanished back into the forest, running for the first aid kit. Sam was breathing in gasps. Her face was contorted with pain.

"What the hell was that thing!?" Jack burst out, glaring at Daniel.

"I don't know, Jack," Daniel said. His fear found refuge in sarcasm, "It didn't have a label I could read."

"What's wrong with her?" Jack went on.

"I don't know that either!" Daniel snapped, "I'm not that kind of doctor!" He took a breath and forced himself to think, "She's in shock."

"Some kind of venom?"

"Possibly," Daniel answered, white-faced and grim.

Teal'c returned with the first aid kit and Jack set to work on her arm. Sam thrashed and moaned. Her breathing was ragged. Her ribs fell and rose erratically as she sucked in gulps of the hot humid air.. She cried out when the antiseptic touched the wound in her arm, as if it stung like a snake bite. Her chilled skin burned his fingers. Daniel held her tighter and whispered in her ear.

"It's okay," he said, "It's us. Sam, relax. Relax."

"Daniel," she gasped.

"Yes. Try to relax."

He had focused inward, looking away from the fear and utter trust in Sam's eyes as she looked up at him. He resisted the urge to rock Sam like a child. He ignored Jack's efforts at first aid, his brain working frantically.

"There are stones in the cave with a glyph that could be the creature," he remembered.

Jack finished tying the bandage and looked up. His eyes were black with heart-wrenching pain. His face was nearly as pale as Sam's.

"What did they say?" he demanded.

"I don't know, I set them aside," Daniel answered.

"WHY?" Jack demanded. "It didn't occur to you that something that huge might be a threat to us?"

"They don't look that big on the glyphs! There isn't any scale!" Daniel hollered. "It looked like it was about an earthworm, some kind of biological science! For gods' sake Jack, the cave is filled with hundreds of those rocks. I can't have read them all in the last few hours! And what were you doing? Fishing?"

Jack's mouth set in a grim line and he lifted Sam up into his arms to carry her back to camp.

"But you can read them?" Jack asked, in a voice that was flat and held a trace of anger.

"Yes," Daniel acknowledged, raking his hand over his head, "It's a combination of Hadkraatu and Dreen, nothing remotely earthlike, and the first time I've seen those languages together. We know the Dreen at least were space faring….."

"_Daniel!_" Jack snapped, shifting so that Carter's head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. "I don't care. Just read them and find out what the hell that thing was and how we help Carter."

Daniel clenched his teeth together as he rose. He had kept his eyes pinned firmly to the ground all the way back to camp.

He had been 'reading' for quite some time, all through the rest of the day and into the night. He suspected it must be morning now. He drank some water and tried not to look at his watch. He has lost Sha're, he had been unable to save Sarah. He was damned if he was going to lose Sam.

"Daniel?" Jack's voice startled him out of his sleep-deprived stupor.

"In here," he answered, but to himself he muttered, "The same place I've been for hours."

The room grew brighter as Jack entered carrying another lantern.

"Anything?" Jack asked.

Irritation flared unchecked. He felt the color and heat rise in his face. "Of course, Jack. I solved it hours ago. I just decided to read another recipe before coming out to tell you."

The irritation rubbed off on Jack, who was equally as sleep deprived and probably twice as scared.

"Carter is _dying_, and we've got forty six _hours_ before we can go back through the gate!"

Daniel stood and flung the clipboard at the wall. It hit with a clatter and hail of pebbles. He put his glasses back on before he gave into the temptation to crush them in his fist.

"Do you think I don't know that? Or that I somehow forgot in the hour it's been since the last time you came in here? Damn it, Jack. What makes you think I can even _find _the answer?"

"Because we're SG-1 and that's how it works," Jack answered, as if it were obvious, "We get into trouble and one of us finds the answer. Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's Teal'c, usually it's you or Sam. Now it's not going to be me or Teal'c and _clearly it isn't going to be Sam. _So that leaves you!"

Jack was shouting when he finished. They stood panting as if they had done more than verbal battle. Silence descended on the cave, broken only by their disjointed breathing. Shudders convulsed down Daniel's back and into his legs, muscle spasms or rage Jack didn't know. Jack forgot sometimes that Daniel wasn't military.

Not often, but sometimes.

"Sorry," Jack mumbled, finally.

Daniel looked up, blinking behind his glasses. "What?" He held up a hand, to keep Jack from speaking again, "Okay, never mind. I just…."

He broke off in midsentence. The light from Jack's lantern was illuminating a section of the cave he had not gotten to yet. At the top he saw a small rock with a glyph that was horrifyingly familiar. He drew in a single breath that was harsh and short and then appeared to not breathe at all.

"Dan-_iel_?" Jack asked. His voice rose innocently. Maybe it would help to ask Daniel for information instead of demanding it.

"Go away," the scientist answered bluntly.

"Okay," Jack answered slowly, "Do you need anything?"

Daniel was transfixed, staring at something across the cave. Jack glanced in that direction but didn't see anything but a huge pile of rocks and boulders.

"I need you to go away," he said. The words were sharp, knife-edged with impatience.

"Daniel," Jack began.

"I mean it, go away," Daniel said.

Jack broke off and regarded him. He had seen that look before – obsessive to the point of insanity.

"What do you see?" Jack demanded.

Daniel had too much experience and training in communication to let his anger continue to lead. Instinctively he looked down submissively before making eye contact with Jack.

"If you want Sam to live, go away," Daniel's tone was a winter landscape.

Jack hesitated a moment longer. He knew Daniel in this mood. The cave could now start flooding and Daniel wouldn't notice until he was waist deep in water. He wouldn't consider leaving until the water was up to his chest and then Jack would have to swim in to get him. He was torn between staying and making sure Daniel didn't faint from hunger and thirst before he completed his translations; and going back out into the jungle to care for Carter. Teal'c was with her, but Teal'c wasn't as familiar with human emergency medical attention as O'Neill would like him to be. Besides, Teal'c was on guard duty in case another one of those things decided to attack.

Daniel had scrambled over a pile of fallen rocks and was brushing dirt off a medium size boulder. Jack considered asking him one more time what he had found, but then remembered Daniel's Berretta was still strapped to his leg. If Jack spoke again, Daniel would no doubt consider it justifiable homicide. Wisely, silently, Jack turned and melted into the darkness, heading for the exit of the cave.

Daniel was so intent he didn't notice Jack's departure. The glyph that had blazed in Jack's lantern light was unmistakable. It was a representation of the creature that had attacked Sam. In the stone the deeply etched image was holding a humanoid in its grasp. The rock was too big for him to move alone, and he was reluctant to call Jack or Teal'c back into the cave. He got a lantern and perched it precariously on a ledge, retrieved the clipboard from the shadows and set to work.

(0)

"JACK!"

Under normal circumstances Daniel shouting his name would bring O'Neill instantly out of a sound sleep. Under current circumstances, it brought him awake, onto his feet and reaching for his weapon.

Not that he had been asleep. He had curled up around Carter like a shell around a pearl when her fever had driven her to a state of violent shivering, her breathing coming with a terrible convulsive force that had scared him to the depth of his soul. He had stayed there even after she had calmed and though she was restless and fitful he had managed to doze off with his arms around her. He realized now, how much he had always wanted to hold her and fall asleep. He just hadn't thought the circumstances would be quite like this.

He wished he had untangled from her a little more gently. She had cried out in pain when he got up. At least he thought it was pain. Teal'c moved over and put his hand on her; and he may have scowled at O'Neill just a little bit.

But Daniel yelling had conditioned him to immediate action.

Daniel was approaching the cave entrance. O'Neill met him there, anxiety written on his face.

"Come with me," Daniel said, shortly.

"Teal'c!" Jack yelled.

"I will watch Major Carter." There was the slightest hitch in Teal'c normally immovable tone.

Jack fell into lock-step with Daniel as they strode back into the cave

"You found something?" Jack asked.

"Yes, but you won't like it," Daniel's voice was grim.

"I already don't like it."

"Just don't shoot the messenger, okay?"

"Will it save Carter?"

They walked a few more paces, their footsteps echoing.

"Yes," Daniel paused, "I think."

"You _think?" _Jack repeated.

"Just come see," Daniel murmured, tiredly.

Jack followed Daniel up to the large boulder.

"Okay," Daniel said, organizing his thoughts."This rock is a map of the area. It took me a while to realize that, but this is the cave," He pointed to an upside down U-shape carved deeply into the surface, "and this is the creature that attacked Sam. It's shown attacking someone."

"So?" Jack asked impatiently.

"The marking underneath it means sick, or infected. I think."

"You _think?"_

"Yes. Look, Jack, I'm dealing a combination of two very different languages and cultures here. It's possible this was made by a culture even older than those. It's odd that the markings are a combination of simple representations and words …"

"Okay" Jack interrupted, "so the map tells them where to avoid so they don't get attacked. How does that help Sam?"

"I'm getting to that. Look. There is a line connecting that creature to one…. Here," Daniel pointed to another representation of the thing, "and the marking under that has additional lines with it."

"And that means?" Jack was going to snap if Daniel didn't get to the bottom line soon.

"Not, or no. But you can see there is a figure of a human traveling from one to the other," Daniel said, his dusty fingers moved over the scrawl of writing below the line, "This explains the trail, the things to look for when traveling it. This word is for waterfall and this one I think is 'rock arch' or something like that." He looked at Jack expectantly, but the Colonel's face was still blank.

The excited stammer returned to Daniel's voice. "I-I-It doesn't make much sense to me, but the map says that the way to make Sam 'not infected' is to take her to this second creature and let it…."

Daniel's voice trailed off.

"Let it what, Daniel?" Jack's voice was as sharp and lethal as a saber.

Daniel took his glasses off in a rough gesture and rubbed his tired eyes. He looked up again and focused on the dark cave wall somewhere past O'Neill's shoulder. He held his glasses in his hand, as if it were easier to tell this to a blurry image of Jack.

"It says she needs to be bitten again by the second creature," Daniel blurted out. He dropped down onto a rock, put his elbows on his knees and locked his fingers behind his neck, head down, eyes closed, his glasses held listlessly in his fingers. "I _know._ It sounds crazy and I can't come up with an explanation. It doesn't say _why. _It must have been so much a part of their culture it was understood. The carvings under the glyphs are newer. I think someone tried to explain it but not in detail. So I don't know why. I just know what it says."

Daniel's exhausted misery cut through Jack's initial reaction – which was to be horrified and furious and ask Daniel if had lost his f**king mind.

He let Daniel ramble on, apparently oblivious to Jack, and went to retrieve a bottle of water and a protein bar out of the pack tossed carelessly against the cave wall.

"It could be that the creatures and the humanoid population of this planet had some kind of symbiotic relationship. It's not like we haven't seen that before. In another humanoid species it could be an antibiotic. They may have had an organ we don't that needed it. It could be that whatever got injected into Samantha was actually beneficial to the former inhabitants. Maybe it's how mothers feed their young, or it's like pollination, in which case it's how they breed…."

"_Daniel," _Jack interrupted.

Jackson blinked and looked up at the figure of O'Neill towering over him. He put his glasses back on and saw the water bottle and protein bar. Jack dropped down beside him.

"Eat," O'Neill ordered.

Jackson let out a long deep breath. "For a minute there I thought you had your 9 millimeter out," Daniel admitted. He drank from the water bottle and there was silence for a moment while he chewed and swallowed.

"Have you taken your allergy stuff?"

"No."

Jack exhaled. "It's in your pack?"

"Yes."

Shaking his head, O'Neill retrieved two capsules from the bottle in Daniel's pack and brought them to him. He watched Daniel knock back the capsules with a long swallow from the water bottle. It was a good thing, Jack thought, that Daniel didn't have to remind himself to breathe.

"How they breed?" Jack repeated, incredulous.

"I don't know, Jack," Daniel sounded like he was on the verge of collapse. "But it must have happened enough to warrant creating this map of the area and which creatures are matched with which. The creatures are fairly stationary, staying in one area for most of their lives. Whatever was injected into Sam needs to be taken out by the other creature."

"You want me to carry Carter, in her current condition, across the jungle on a trail that may not even exist anymore and let her be attacked again?"

"No, I don't _want _you to. But you sent me to find an answer and I found that."

"Daniel."

Jackson speared O'Neill with a look that burned like summer lightning even in the dark of the cave and the pale glow of their fading lantern.

"Jack, if we don't do _something_, Sam will die."

(0)

Samantha Carter had the face of an angel and looked like an ethereal piece of gold tissue. Jack's initial impression had been of Christmas tinsel – all flash and no substance, spun sugar with no grit. Another scientist for cryin' out loud!

His initial impression hadn't stopped him from falling headlong into eyes like the ocean and drowning there.

He had since learned differently. Samantha Carter was composed of equal parts moonlight and steel.

He knew that even as he carried her through the jungle, limp and dying in his arms. He could feel the life ebbing out of her even as he forged ahead towards the most unlikely cure he had ever been presented with. The wound on her arm was swollen and purple now. Her skin was nearly translucent, pale as the moon; her bones as fragile as glass, as if the largest one would crumble in his hand.

_Hang on, Sam, _he thought wearily.

They had walked through endless jungle on a trail that was questionable at best; following Daniel's carefully copied and translated instructions. Jack hated jungles. He especially hated ones that had biting insects and vines and vermin of every imaginable kind.

And he really hated ones with giant biting slugs.

Like this one. Teal'c marched resolutely ahead of them, hacking away jungle growth when necessary. Daniel walked behind them. He had a clipboard in his hand with the copy of the map. As they walked he would flip the paper up and scribble frantically on the paper under it, wiping sweat before it dripped in his eyes. He had wrapped a scarf around his head but it wasn't helping in the humid conditions.

Jack's arms ached and sweat dripped into his eyes, but he was only aware of the frail weight of her body and the way her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. Unaware of his own fatigue, Jack tripped and nearly fell. Only the quick reflexes of Daniel, who grabbed him by the shoulders, stopped him from going to his knees.

Teal'c whirled around and eyed the situation gravely. He stalked up to them, handed his machete to Daniel, who was so startled he nearly dropped it. Teal'c held out his arms.

"Give her to me," he said. Each syllable was a growl, a demand not to be trifled with.

"I got her," Jack insisted, fighting the weariness in his voice.

Teal'c tilted his head, one eyebrow twitching skeptically.

"O'Neill." There was a wealth of threat in the two syllables. Teal'c sounded like he would take Carter by force if Jack didn't surrender her willingly.

"He's right, Jack," Daniel's voice was calm, "You need a break, and I can't remember the last time I slept. Let Teal'c take her for a bit."

Jack stood there breathing great gulps of humid air for a moment. On a good day, even if O'Neill was in top condition, Teal'c could knock him over with one steady look. Daniel, albeit memory-stamped as Karlan, had once flipped him without breaking a sweat. Jack still remembered the bruises.

He passed Carter to Teal'c as if she was a sleeping child. His arms trembled for a moment as the muscles relaxed and then they felt lighter. But his heart was heavier.

Daniel put the clipboard in his backpack, stood again and pushed past him to take point. He paused a moment and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. They shared a brief look.

Teal'c fell in behind Daniel and Jack had their six now.

"Listen," he said, "I hate to sound like a kid in the backseat, but are we almost there?"

"I don't know," Daniel admitted wearily. God, he hated those words. He had never been able to stand not knowing…well, anything.

"Daniel."

"The map doesn't have a scale, or if it did I couldn't find it. I was trying to figure one out, as we passed things. The waterfall was about two klicks back. If the rock arch is about a klick up ahead I think I can answer your question then."

Jack subsided again. Daniel was miserable enough. Jack knew he blamed himself for bringing Carter here in the first place, but Jack also knew that Carter had been anxious to come. She never turned down any shot at exploration.

_Scientists_, Jack thought scathingly.

Still he had no choice now but to follow Daniel and do as Daniel suggested they do – even if he did think the heat and stress had finally fried Jackson's brain.

They passed the stone arch finally and estimated it would be another three kilometers. All of them needed to stop to rest at this point. None of them did. They passed food and water to each other and trudged on.

At length they stumbled upon the clearing with evidence of a major upheaval, the same kind created by the creature that had attacked Sam. They ground to a halt, staring. Jack was carrying Sam again at that point.

"Now what?" he asked, impatiently.

Daniel took Sam from him and carried her to the edge of the ruined earth. He set her down and stepped back with the others.

At first nothing happened. There was only the humidity and the sound of the insects buzzing and the wind in the trees. Then the ground began to tremble.

Then it erupted with a sickening, squishing sound and a clattering of rocks and roots and dirt. A creature nearly identical to the land squid that had first attacked Carter came shooting out of the hole. Jack's mouth went dry and his hand automatically pulled his weapon. Fear tightened every muscle in his body and his skin crawled. It was all he could not to rush in and pull Sam away, to keep his feet planted in place.

How could he have let Jackson talk him into this madness? This thing was going to _eat _Carter and he had helped assign her to that fate.

The monster lifted up and began searching the ground with its tentacles. It found Carter and lifted her up, higher and higher, towards its snapping mouth.

Jack heard himself screaming and knew that Teal'c was behind him, restraining him with both arms.

A slender tentacle came out and attached itself to Sam's arm, where her wound festered and bled. She screamed when it finally came into contact and Jack's blood ran cold in his veins. He was absolutely horrified and helpless; and Jack O'Neill did not suffer helplessness with any kind of grace.

"_Daniel!" _He shouted.

Daniel gripped his shoulder.

"It's okay," he said, "It will put her down. It doesn't want _her."_

_Well I want her, _Jack thought. He glanced at Daniel. The scientist was not really as confident as he was trying to sound. He was shaken, pale and wide eyed.

Finished, the creature withdrew its thin tentacle and began to lower Sam to the ground. She hung in its grasp, limp and lifeless. When she was about nine meters up it simply dropped her. The three remaining members of SG-1 bolted forward as one unit, catching her, breaking her fall. Jack gathered her into his arms and this time no one argued with him.

As the creature slithered back into its hole, they carried Sam far away before stumbling to the ground. Jack was furious. He swept a lock of pale gold hair off Sam's forehead and thought miserably,

_What have I done?_

(0)

Sam woke abruptly, startled out of senselessness by the amazing fact that she was alive. The sun stabbed her eyes and made her abandon any further attempt at opening them. She moaned and tried to move, but every muscle in her body screamed in protest.

"Sam?"

"Daniel?"

Okay, if Daniel was with her, it couldn't be all bad.

Even if she hurt like the fourth day of a three day pass.

"Can you sit up?" Daniel asked.

Mentally she was shrieking no. But there were a whole lot of hands helping her into a seated position and she didn't have much choice. She leaned back against something that felt strong enough to be the foundation of the galaxy and dared to let her eyes slit open again.

Teal'c was kneeling in front of her with a bottle of water. Daniel was beside her, one hand on her shoulder and anxiety in his eyes. That meant the foundation of the galaxy that was holding her up was Jack. Military training demanded that she sit up on her own immediately.

Pure exhaustion demanded that she stay right where she was. Blissful happiness at being able to lean against Jack with no repercussions made the choice easy. She let more of her weight fall against him so that the pleasure in her soul outweighed the pain of her body.

The water Teal'c offered her was warm and tasted like the plastic bottle. Daniel made her take slow sips even though her thirst was strong enough to make her want to bolt the entire contents at once.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Oh," Daniel drawled slowly, "I think that's a story for when you feel stronger."

"You mean it's not just a bad hangover?"

"You should be so lucky," Daniel said.

"Why would Major Carter be lucky to have a hangover?" Teal'c asked.

Daniel and Sam blinked at him. Sometimes, Daniel thought, Teal'c must do this just to be funny. After all this time on earth he still couldn't be that innocent.

Jack spoke finally. His voice was a deep reverberation against her back,"Are you hungry?"

"A little," she'd have said anything to stay where she was for a little longer.

Teal'c brought her a protein bar; and in the end she ate three, finished a bottle of water and even though she still felt like the tail end of a black-out drunk, she felt infinitely better. She took time to look at the men surrounding her. They looked awful, like they hadn't eaten or slept – jaws covered in several days of stubble, dirty, sweat-stained. Teal'c's expression was composed and relieved, as if everything had turned out exactly as he had known it would; Daniel's looked as drawn and haunted as someone who had held the weight of the world for days.

"Can you stand?" Jack asked.

The answer to that was most definitely, resoundingly no. But if Jack O'Neill had asked her to fly she would have done her best to comply.

"I'll try, sir."

She turned her head as she spoke and realized his face was barely inches from hers. Her breath caught as his eyes devoured her, as if he was watching her with his very soul. In his eyes she saw their shared secret, the knowledge that was theirs alone. Whatever torment she had gone through the last few days, O'Neill had felt every moment of it.

Then Jack blinked and the spell was broken, the stolen moment lost. His eyes became unreadable again, like a black curtain drawn over a new moon; and Sam wondered if she had imagined it.

With their assistance she regained her feet. It was Daniel's arm she clung to; Daniel whose hands dropped away last, when it was obvious she would stay upright, Daniel who was safe, who loved her like a brother and was unapologetically civilian.

Jack let go of her first, but she understood.

Sam looked around in confusion.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"PX4-1615," Daniel answered.

"No," she gestured helplessly at the jungle and the disturbed earth not far from them. "How did we get here?"

"We walked," Jack said, "and we're going to walk just a little more, back to the Gate and away from here. Before we get there we're going to stop and eat and sleep."

They gathered their gear, though Teal'c steadfastly refused to let Carter have hers. O'Neill stepped forward to take point. Daniel fell in beside Sam, close enough to catch her if she fell. She appeared to have made a full recovery. Once the fever had broken, she had fallen into a peaceful sleep. They had taken turns watching over her until she had finally woken on her own.

Jack knew a relief that swept into the depths of his being and almost left him too weak to return home.

Almost.

"Daniel," he tossed the word casually over his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"If you want to come back here," Jack said with a note of utter finality, "You can bring SG-3 with you."

FINIS


	6. Chapter 6

Another stand alone adventure. No time frame for this, except that Teal'c refers to Sam as _Major _Carter. Other than that, put it wherever you like.

As much as he could, Jack rushed Sam through the shadows blackening the street. Daniel had their six, running backwards in the gloom, P90 at the ready. The night was already midnight deep, but the torrential rain made it even darker. Soaked to the bone, Sam clung to Jack as he led them through the gloom, skirting along the façade of one building after another. They ducked into the gaping mouth of an alley and halted. Sam was breathing harshly; and, even though he didn't want to admit it, she really wasn't doing all that well.

Of course, torture at the hands of the Goa'uld would do that to a person.

In the downpour, the light pouring out the windows of the building was just a weaker shade of darkness. Even so, they would cast shadows and it would be enough illumination for anyone following to spot them.

Daniel staggered into the alley and took up a position in front of them. Jack pinned Carter up against a wall and tried to look into her eyes. It was useless. There wasn't enough light to see if her pupils were dilated or not. He knew she was groggy and fighting it.

"How's she doing?" Daniel asked, sounding grim and desperate.

"Not good," Jack answered grimly.

Daniel turned to squint at him. The archaeologist had removed his glasses, which were useless in a driving rain.

"We'll carry her if we have to," he promised.

A whirring noise in the distance caught their attention. Landing lights heralded a ship making a descent on a rooftop several blocks away.

"I told Teal'c there would be a TicTac around here somewhere!" Jack said, because he knew with absolute certainty that they weren't going back through the Star Gate.

"You think that's Teal'c?"

"Of course it is," Jack sounded like he would make that be reality by sheer force of his will.

Sam sagged and Jack caught her.

They could hear voices too, muffled by the storm and getting closer.

"I hear them," Sam whispered, "I hear them coming. Sir!" She clutched Jack's forearms desperately. For a moment she could feel the torture again, feel it crawling around in her head, digging into her skull. It would only have been a matter of time before it got to her, in spite of her resolve, in spite of her training.

"Shhh," he took her face in his hands. "Carter, be quiet."

Sam groaned and made an effort to revive herself. She raised her face to the sky and let the cold rain fall on her face. Drenched and shivering, Sam reveled in the knowledge that she outside the walls that had been her prison. She was with Jack and Daniel and Teal'c was waiting for them in a Tel'tak. She wasn't alone and helpless and in pain any more.

Well she wasn't alone and helpless at least. Her body was covered with bruises and injuries. Her sanity had come very close to unraveling.

Lightning danced in the clouds and thunder growled. Sam jumped and pressed closer to Jack. Another flash lit up the alley, shadows strobed and they pressed back against the wall.

"She's right," Daniel's words were clipped and grim. He turned and drove Jack and Sam further into the alley. "They're coming."

They retreated until they hit the back wall and then crouched in blackness so dense they couldn't even see each other. Jack gathered Sam into his arms, holding her between his legs and wrapping his arms around her to cover her hair. It was wet and plastered to her skull but still luminous enough to catch the light and give them away.

Hidden in the sudden absolute darkness, Sam whimpered again but it was lost in the thundering rain.

Footsteps and search lights pounded past the entrance to the alley. Jack and Daniel took a moment to breathe, though Daniel kept the P90 pointed at the opening.

"What now?" Daniel asked, _more _than willing to let Jack figure out what the hell they did next.

"We get to Teal'c," Jack replied.

Impatient, Daniel snapped, "I _know_ that! How?"

"At the moment, back the way we came," O'Neill said.

Daniel was looking in the direction of Jack's voice but couldn't see him at all.

"Simple," Daniel said.

"I like simple," Jack answered.

Daniel heard the rustle of clothing as Jack stood. He also heard Sam's sharp inhale of pain. There was a knife wound in her left shoulder. Daniel wondered if it was bleeding again.

The streets and alleys seemed endless. Rain fell on them like icy fire. Jack measured out the time by the flashing of the lightning and the throbbing of his knee, which was not happy at all with the damp and the cold and the exercise. Sam clung to him and remained resolutely silent.

When Jack could sense she was slipping, stumbling and he was carrying her more and more, he stopped. It was so abrupt Daniel crashed into them and growled,

"_Ching-wah __tsao__ duh liou mahng_!"

Jack turned and looked at Daniel in what was miserably passing for light. He helped Sam slide bonelessly to the ground and propped her up against some crates and boxes.

"Do I want to know what you just said?" he asked.

"_Chur ni-duh," _Daniel muttered, sinking to the ground himself.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Jack muttered in return. 'Screw you' sounded pretty much the same in any language.

"Why are we stopping?" Daniel demanded, though he had a good idea why. Sam was exhausted and from his new position on the ground he could see that Jack wasn't putting any weight on his left leg.

"Sam needs to rest," Jack said.

"We don't have time," Daniel responded. "We can't be the only ones who saw Teal'c land that Tel'tak. That rooftop could be crawling with Jaffa by now. Teal'c could be in trouble."

"Tell me something I don't already know, Daniel!" Jack snapped.

Standing in the streaming rain, wet cold and pursued by an implacable enemy Daniel thought, angrily, _you don't know how to admit when you're hurting. You don't know when to let someone else take over; and goddamn it, those are two of your best qualities._

Daniel stood and thrust the P90 towards Jack. Reaching down he helped Sam to her feet.

"Come on," he said, with as much command and encouragement as Daniel could ever manage to put in his voice, "I'll carry you."

"No," Sam answered. Her voice was sharpened steel through gritted teeth.

She clung to Daniel's arms for a moment, swaying, before she stood up.

"_Jūnduì," _Daniel spat, as if it was another curse.

He got an arm around Sam's waist though and she didn't protest any further.

Heads down and hugging the darkness like motherless children, they slogged on.

They reached the building on which Teal'c had landed and decided to take a side entrance, hidden in another alley. The building was oddly deserted, which stood all the hairs up on O'Neill's neck and made all his warning bells clang.

The stairs were narrow and dimly lit, but at least they were out of the rain and the relentless noise had stopped. After the drumming rain, the silence inside the building was even more unnerving. In spite of his edgy certainty that they were being watched, O'Neill risked the radio.

"Teal'c?"

"_Go ahead_."

"We're in the building, coming up. What's your situation?"

"_The Teltac is surrounded by Jaffa. I am unable to fire on them_."Teal'c sounded so 'matter of fact' he might have been reporting the canceling of the SGC Annual Picnic. Only those who knew him well could hear the undercurrent of annoyance in his voice.

The rest of SG1 knew him _very_ well.

They reached the door that would take them out onto the roof. Jack unsafed his P90 and handed Carter his zat. Sam took it in her good right hand. Her left arm was being held tightly against her side. Daniel still had her around her waist.

Jack gave Daniel a look that pierced through him and embedded itself in the wall behind him.

"You got her?" he demanded.

"I'm fine, sir," Carter answered, before Daniel could.

Jack gave her a hard, measuring look. She seemed to have recovered a little, though she looked like hell. Her breathing was short and shallow and even in the murky yellow light, her skin was too flushed, too bright. Jack suspected she was having an adrenaline rush caused by the thought of freedom being within reach. They needed to move before that rush was exhausted.

"Let's get this party started then," he growled.

He found the controls for the door and it obediently slid open. The rain had not let up and a blast of icy air knifed through the door.

"Go!" Jack hissed and bolted through the door.

Hearts hammering, Daniel and Sam followed Jack out onto a rain-swept, blast damaged roof. A dozen Jaffa stared for less than a moment and then all hell broke loose.

The staff weapon, Teal'c had taught them, was designed to be used by mass forces. Few Jaffa could aim and fire it as well as he could. It wasn't part of their training as they were mostly considered expendable; and only the most trusted Jaffa even got to carry weapons. The ones currently attacking them seemed to be following that rule. The lethal rattle of the P90 echoed into the night, along with the all too familiar sound of staff blasts and the electronic _ping_ of Sam's zat. Energy sizzled past their ears and chunks of concrete flew up and fell on them as shrapnel.

Firing their weapons without pause while swinging them in a wide arc, the three members of SG1 moved relentlessly forward. A clank and a shaft of bright light on the Tel'tak announced the opening of the door and Teal'c's solid silhouette appeared.

Pinned down by weapons fire from both sides, Jaffa went sprawling to the ground and lay still. They hadn't stood a chance when Teal'c came in on their six.

_Bad tactics_, Jack thought, _always cover your ass._

The smell of the rain was now mixed with battle scents – ozone, gun powder …..blood. Jack ground his teeth. As long as it was the enemy's blood, he could be okay with it; though he was going to have to deal with 'brooding Daniel' on the way home.

They ran into the shadow of the Tel'tak and then made it to the ramp. Teal'c pounded down the ramp to help Daniel with Sam. She cried out in pain when he unwittingly jarred her injured shoulder.

By the time they reached the inside and slammed the door shut, Sam was losing consciousness.

"Teal'c, go!" Jack yelled, "Airborne. NOW!"

Daniel had Sam on the floor, pulling back shredded edges of clothing to examine wounds. He unclipped his backpack and pulled a pressure bandage from it without a wasted moment, slamming it onto the bleeding wound in the hollow of her shoulder. Her teeth were chattering violently. Her skin was pale but her cheeks were vivid red. She felt much, _much_, too warm to Daniel.

Suddenly his head snapped up.

"Did you hear that?"

Jack met his eyes and nodded. A whine high above the noise of the rain… a whine that was all too familiar…growing louder, growing closer…..an approaching roar now…..

Death gliders.

"TEAL'C!" Jack bellowed. "Get us the hell out of here!"

The tel'tak screamed into life. Rain whipped sideways past the windows as Teal'c pushed the ship into a steep climb. The storm buffeted them and the engines howled in protest. Teal'c ignored them. He knew the ship's capabilities.

At last the storm became tattered around its edges as they rose above it. Atmosphere gave way to the dark of space. Teal'c checked the monitors and saw two death gliders pursuing them. He bared his teeth in a feral grin.

They were unarmed but not unprotected. They were shielded, and he could cloak if he chose to. But their purpose would not be served by hiding. He banked sharply upwards and tipped the Tel'tak over backwards like a turtle on its shell. The inertial dampers screamed and so did O'Neill as they were tossed against a bulkhead in the ship attempt to compensate for the reckless move.

"Teal'c, what the HELL!" Jack hollered. He had barely managed to grab Carter before she hit the wall and Daniel as trying to roll himself out of an awkward tangle of his own arms and legs.

Teal'c had an unblocked view of their pursuers now. The lead ship came at them with canons firing. Fast, lightning quick and able to turn on a dime, the death gliders could make easy work of a bulky cargo ship.

But Teal'c had an advantage over them. He had spent the last few years in the company of Jack O'Neill. He had learned the value of 'thinking outside the box.' He pushed the engines until they screamed again and headed for the planet's single moon.

He dove for the surface and the gliders followed. Keeping one eye on controlling their descent, he hit another set of controls that managed the escape pods. Cuing a quick sequence of commands he set them to self destruct.

"O'Neill!" he shouted, "Release the escape pods!"

Jack scrambled to his feet as Daniel scrambled in to take his place holding Sam still.

With his preternatural hearing, Teal'c knew the moment just before O'Neill pulled the lever to release the pods. In that instant, he cloaked the ship, banked it sharply to the right and barrel rolled it.

The reaction of his team mates to that particular move was loud and unflattering. But Teal'c was too busy ordering the ship to a halt and spinning it around to watch.

Robbed of the Tel'tak, the death gliders had turned their attention to the escape pods, just as he had known they would. He saw them getting closer and closer and then, just as they were nearly on top of them, both pods exploded in a hail of fire and flying metal. Unable to change course in time, the death gliders were both fatally wounded. What was left of them spun downward to crash into the moon. Flares of flame and smoke erupted from the surface and vanished in the vacuum of space.

Jack had staggered into the cockpit at that point, holding his shoulder and limping noticeably.

"What the hell," he murmured, watching the fireworks outside.

Bits of debris went spiraling past the window.

Jack couldn't help the vicious grin that spread across his face and he saw it mirrored in Teal'c's eyes.

"Nice," Jack purred, high on victory and adrenaline.

"Shall we return to Earth, O'Neill?"

Unable to resist returning to his snarky sense of humor, O'Neill replied,

"Make it so."

By the time he had returned to the cargo section, Daniel had moved Sam to a hard slab set into the wall that seemed to function as a bunk.

She was completely unconscious after a shot of morphine and Daniel was searching for injuries.

"She going to be okay?" Jack asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Not that kind of doctor, Jack," Daniel answered, without looking up.

There was a long pause and Jack understood. The best they could do was emergency field medicine. Sighing deeply, Jack went to get the medical kit and packs.

(0)

_Ching-wah __tsao__ duh liou mahng - _frog humping son of a bitch ( common Mandarin curse)

_Chur ni-duh – _Screw you, go to hell, etc….

_Jūnduì – _the Military


	7. Chapter 7

By the time Jack got back with all three remaining packs and the med kits, Daniel was grimly using his knife to get Sam out of her soaking clothing as gently as possible. He was staring at some point just inside his glasses, or wherever it was in his head that he went when there was something necessary but distasteful to do. Neither of them liked violating Carter any more than the Goa'uld already had; and even she accepted that there were certain things that came with being the only woman on a four person team. At the moment they had to get her warm and a torn, soaking wet BDU wasn't going to do that.

Even doped up from morphine, the memory of torture and of other hands wormed its way into her consciousness. Sam groaned and seized Daniel's wrist.

"It's me, Sam," Daniel whispered, "We're just going to put you in something dry okay?"

"Lost my pack," she murmured, relaxing her grip on his wrist so he could pull it free.

With all the care he had learned handling rare antiquities Daniel peeled the remains of her shirt away from her shoulders.

"You can borrow mine," Daniel answered."I just want them back cleaned and pressed, okay?"

"Deal," Sam murmured.

Jack listened to them with half his awareness while trying to ignore the horrifying cuts and bruises covering Sam's upper torso. He concentrated on doing a quick inventory of their medical supplies and extra clothes. Survival was the next order of business. Jack had survived by doing his job. He would survive this.

Even if he wanted to find the Goa'uld responsible and tear it apart with his bare hands. From the look on Daniel's face, he would set aside his annoying need to _talk_ everything to death and assist O'Neill in ritual dismemberment if the opportunity presented itself.

"Too big. They'll fall down," Sam protested and then stopped to hiss sharply through her teeth.

Daniel's jaw clenched but he kept his voice light and even.

"Won't matter. We're not letting you stand up any time soon."

Daniel held his hand out to Jack and motioned for him to hand over the trauma kit.

"Uh, Daniel," Jack said, "She's going to have to come out of everything that's wet. That means _everything."_

"I know. Trust me. Give her some dignity."

"You're going to give her pneumonia if you don't," Jack pointed out. He was about to point out that Daniel's lips were turning blue and his arms were covered in chills. He was only wet from the waist down; his sopping jacket was in a heap on the floor. But Sam wasn't the only one who needed dry clothes.

Cold and wet – two of Daniel's least favorite things in the Universe. No wonder he had been growling at them in Chinese earlier.

The look Daniel threw at Jack indicated that the archaeologist could chew glass at the moment and not notice.

O-oookay, no pissing contest with Daniel right now. Got it.

Sometimes being the alpha male meant knowing when to back down.

"Okay, _mei-mei,_" Daniel said, "We have to do something about this shoulder besides a pressure bandage; and I can't give you any more morphine. So I need you to think about something else for a little bit."

Sam locked eyes with him for a moment, a flash of aquamarine amid the bruises. Then she clenched her teeth and nodded. Jack felt a surge of pride that made his heart pound hard enough to bruise ribs.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Umm," Daniel's eyes flickered rapidly behind his glasses, as if he was turning pages in his mind, "Oh, what about that thing you were trying to explain to me a couple days ago? Something about singularities and event horizons?"

"Trying to disprove some version of Penrose's cosmic censorship hypothesis," Sam answered. The syllables came in between pain filled breaths.

"Yeah," Daniel said, as if he actually knew what she was talking about, "Why don't you wrestle with that right now?"

"'Kay," Sam said.

Even with her mind occupied elsewhere, she cried out when the bandage came off. Jack grabbed her hand and let her hang onto him as tight as she wanted. Her skin felt as if she was on fire from within.

Which was how she made Jack feel all the time.

Efficiently and meticulously, Daniel cleaned the wound, emptied half a tube of triple antibiotic into it and covered it with another dressing. All the while Sam kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling, very deliberately in another place, fixated on another problem.

But she exhaled as if she had been underwater when Daniel was finally done.

"Did you kick Penrose's butt?" Daniel asked when she finally focused on him again.

"Not yet." Her voice was raspy but lucid.

"Well, give it some more thought," Daniel soothed, with just a hint of teasing.

Daniel motioned for Jack to hand over a shirt, which he then bunched up as if dressing a child.

"Can you sit up, _mei-mei_?"

"I don't know."

"Want help?"

Sam nodded weakly.

"Jack."

O'Neill sat down next to Sam. Daniel lifted her up and Sam sagged gratefully forward, against Jack's shoulder. Gingerly, Daniel slid the shirt up over her injured arm and shoulder and up over her head.

"What did you call me?" Sam murmured, in a voice groggy with pain killers.

"_Mei-mei," _Daniel answered, easing her right hand through the shirt sleeve.

"No, on the planet, when I wouldn't let you carry me; because you sounded really pissed off."

Daniel thought for a moment as he moved slowly around behind her and reached up under the shirt. Though he was trying to keep his teeth from chattering Daniel smiled a little as he said,

"_Jūnduì."_

Sam ground her teeth as he unhooked her bra and then slid one strap carefully down her right arm.

"And that means?"

"Military."

And Sam laughed. Clutching Jack's forearms as Daniel stripped her of sopping clothing, drugged but still fighting pain, miraculously, Sam laughed.

Daniel, relaxed, reassuring. Daniel who always understood how you were feeling and always knew the right thing to say. The soothing cadence of his voice dragging people along the way the moon controlled the tide, pulling you where he wanted you to , Jack realized, he was really proud to know this man. His eyes met Daniel's in mute gratitude.

He was also just a little impressed by how efficiently Daniel had gotten Sam's soaking wet bra out from under her shirt. He'd simply freed one strap, pulled it through the short sleeve and then dragged the entire thing out from the other sleeve, keeping Sam modestly covered the entire time.

"Who taught you to do that?" he asked.

"I did," Sam answered.

Jack's eyebrows lifted.

"Something you two want to tell me?" Jack asked.

Daniel looked momentarily horrified but Sam chuckled again and then winced as they helped her lay back down.

"No," she said, grimacing as she tried to find a comfortable position. "For situations like this."

Jack nodded and then folded up Teal'c jacket and put it under Sam's head.

"Better?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, breathless and exhausted just from the exertion.

"Okay, step two," Daniel said, "We need one of the emergency blankets."

They covered her up, unlaced her boots and stripped off her wet socks. Moments later they had shimmied her out of her wet pants and underwear and into a pair of Daniel's shorts, all the while preserving Sam's dignity under the blanket. By the time they were done Sam had passed out from the effort. Together they rolled her onto her side and into a recovery position, arranging Teal'c jacket under her head as best they could. Jack smoothed Sam's hair back from her face and away from her neck. If Daniel noticed the tenderness and longing in the gesture, he remained silent about it.

Jack tossed Daniel a bundle of clothing.

"You next," he ordered.

Daniel didn't argue. He'd been keeping his teeth from chattering by sheer force of will. Cold and weary, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the Tel'tak's facilities.

"I'll just …uh…change in there."

"I'll stay with her."

Daniel nodded.

"Try to give her some more water if she wakes up."

"It's not my first barbecue, Daniel."

Jack was already snapping open cold packs to put on the worst of the bruises. He put one on Sam's forehead as best he could and another on the dip of her waist, where he remembered a particularly ugly black and blue bruise.

Probably from someone's fist.

Jack's stomach clenched.

Jack remembered the horrified look on Daniel's face when they realized where Sam must be, that she had been captured.

_We have to find her Jack…. _

_We will, _Jack had answered, though he had added privately to himself, _if she's alive….. _The thought had come to him unbidden, chilling him like winter midnight.

Daniel emerged in dry clothes and started draping wet stuff over crates and boxes.

"You're next," he told Jack.

Jack didn't argue. By the time he came back, Daniel was sitting sprawled with his legs out in front of him and his back against Sam's bunk, tiredly chewing a power bar. With the immediate crisis averted Daniel would be willing to collapse with exhaustion. Jack was still on an adrenaline high. He had his team back together. Now he wanted justice; or vengeance. If that was what someone wanted to call it, Jack wouldn't argue.

He sat down cross legged in front of Daniel.

"Got another one of those?" he asked.

Daniel rummaged in the pack beside him and tossed a power bar to Jack. After a moment of slugging warm water from a canteen and eating without tasting, Jack asked,

"Who was it, Daniel?"

Across from him, eyebrows lifted in question.

"What slimy son of a bitch snakehead was it this time?" Jack clarified. He started out soft and ended on a snarl.

Daniel had seen just enough of the Goa'uld compound to know.

"Sobek," he answered in his best matter of fact lecture voice. Jack was balanced on a knife's edge of temper and just as likely to unleash it on hapless archaeologists as on the enemy.

_Shit,_ Daniel thought, _he's ready to murder someone with his bare hands._

"Crocodile god," he went on, reciting from the vast storehouse that was his memory, "was depicted as a crocodile or a man with the head of a crocodile; in some Egyptian creation myths, it was Sobek who first came out of the waters of chaos to create the world. As a creator god, he was occasionally linked with the sun god …umm…. Ra."

Eyes met. Locked.

"What did he want with Carter?" That low, slow snarl was still in Jack's voice.

Daniel shrugged. "What any of them want with any of us. ID codes, information about the Tauri ….. or maybe information about me and you."

Conversation sizzled silently between them.

"You think he's looking for us?" Jack asked.

"Possibly."

"Why?"

Another shrug. "Revenge?"

"How would he even know about me and you, Daniel?"

Daniel reached for the canteen and took a drink. His hand was shaking.

"Amunet," he said, choking on it.

Jack watched as sorrow turned Daniel's eyes to frost. He gave Daniel a look of helpless, hopeless compassion and waited. Daniel would keep talking or he wouldn't.

_Let it go, Daniel,_ he begged wordlessly, _you're too exhausted to go there._

After a few moments that Jack was certain were spent in driving the pain back into the abyss of his soul where it usually lived, Daniel took his glasses off and pressed his thumb and fingers into his eyes, rubbing lightly.

"She would know everything that happened. Everything that Sha're knew."

Jack used the toe of his boot to kick Daniel lightly in the foot. Daniel looked at him, startled.

"We don't have to do this now," O'Neill said, gruffly.

Daniel nodded, put his glasses back on and took another swallow of water.

Teal'c joined them at that point.

"What is Major Carter's condition?" he asked.

Daniel shook his head and rubbed his damp hair into unruly spikes.

"If I had to label it, I'd say stable but critical. I have no idea if there are internal injuries or not. We won't know until we get her to Janet. Until then it's basic first aid."

"Survival," Jack said. He hit Daniel's foot with his toe again. "Get some sleep. Teal'c and I will watch Carter and rip open some boxes to see what we can use."

Daniel opened his mouth to protest and then gave up. He took his glasses off again and slouched down a little more. He crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

Much, much later with Daniel and Sam asleep and Teal'c back in the cockpit, Jack heated a spaghetti and meat sauce MRE, tore the corner off of it and ate it by squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste.

He'd had worse. He was cleaning it up when Carter stirred. He went and perched delicately next to her, not wanting her to forget where she was and move suddenly.

"Carter," he muttered, quietly.

"Sir," she murmured back. "Hurts."

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

"Stay still." An order, from a voice whose orders she obeyed without question.

Then she felt the cool of an antiseptic swab and winced at the sharp jab of a needle in her arm and his thumb briefly putting pressure on the tiny wound.

He offered her the canteen, helped her sit up a little and she sipped some of the tepid water gratefully.

"Sir?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"For the shot?"

"For coming after me."

She shifted enough to look up at him with those haunting sapphire eyes that always saw too much. There were shadows under her eyes and bruises standing out in sharp relief. Her hair was sticking up like a demented hedgehog and Daniel's shirt was hanging on her. For a brief heart wrenching moment he wished she was wearing _his_ shirt.

"Wasn't gonna leave you there," Jack said, gruffly.

"I know." She did. Everything she had ever believed about this man's courage and his loyalty was warranted.

"Hungry?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Tired," she answered.

"I hear sleeping is good for that," Jack observed.

Her lovely mouth twitched in a smile. Jack's heart did a slow somersault as he realized he'd do _anything_ to make her smile like that again.

"Sorry if I made you worry," she said suddenly.

His throat was suddenly too tight for words.

_Worry. Goddamn it, Sam, you scared the __shit__ out of me._

She looked up at him and found him looking back at her as if she was the only thing in the world that truly mattered.

"Go back to sleep," he said, and added quietly to himself _Samantha_ – because he was never _never_ going to be able to say it out loud the way it was meant to be said.

In joy. In worship. In passion. In awe.

Marching into that Goa'uld compound to rescue had been an impossible mission. He had known it…

And he had done it anyway.

And love had made it possible. Failing Sam was _not _an option.

He watched those moonstone eyes close. Her long lashes lay soft against her pale skin. She reached for his hand and he closed his fingers over hers tightly. In a few moments her breathing fell into the rhythm of sleep.

"Sweet dreams," Jack murmured.

_Samantha….._

(0)

_Mei-mei –_ Little sister (and please don't send me emails telling me Daniel never called Sam by a nickname. We also never saw them in quite this situation and I think he would.)


	8. Chapter 8

**This is a bit of a departure from the usual "Sam-whomping" that happens in ****Moonlight and Steel****. But sometimes it's about the moonlight.**

**My take on Window of Opportunity.**

**(0)**

The first time Jack O'Neill decided to risk kissing Samantha Carter, he waited until the last few moments he had before the reset.

Because it was scary; it was one of the biggest risks he had taken in a decade. Considering his life over the past decade, that was quite a statement to make.

Because if she didn't kiss him back, it would be devastating. He hoped that if she saw him resign first it would make her decision easier. But if she didn't kiss him back…well, then what was left of his heart and soul would just shatter into bits, into the subatomic particles she liked to talk about, and go spinning off into space never to be reunited again.

Sam was the last chance he had at 'normal'.

He waited until the last moment and didn't tell anyone what he planned – not even Teal'c, who would have understood, and especially not Daniel, who wouldn't. He marched in and handed Hammond his resignation, tried to keep his heart from pounding out of his chest, fought down the panic attack, pulled the woman he loved into his arms, and kissed her.

It was a sweet kiss, slow and hot and wet with no signs of getting rough or demanding and – _Christ – _she was kissing _back_, mouth open, and he was lost in it, in the gentle, slowly shifting caress of her tongue and a faint taste of salt that swirled in and hinted at tears. Her hand cupped the back of his neck and held him there and her body was supple and willing in his arms. It was all he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

A tingling, throbbing heat flowed through his body, the slowest and hottest arousal he'd ever experienced. He kept silent but she moaned into his mouth, an inadvertent sound, full of longing.

When they broke apart he had one brief, heartrending instant to stare into her shocked, passion-filled eyes, to watch her lovely, kiss-reddened lips form his name…

…and then he was sitting at a table in the commissary, a spoonful of Froot Loops halfway to his mouth, Daniel looking at him inquisitively, and Carter a million miles away across the table.

He decided not to use the same tactic the next time. He formulated a new plan. But it took him another few cycles to work up the courage to do it.

He ignored Daniel's sincere request for his opinion, dropped his spoon into the bowl of cereal with a clatter of metal on ceramic and a healthy splash of milk, and speared Carter with a look.

"Briefing's canceled," he said before he could change his mind.

"Sir?"

"Jack?"

Jack didn't look at Daniel. He was superfluous in this cycle.

"Go put on some civvies and meet me in the parking lot, at my truck," Jack said.

"Sir?"

"That's an order, Major. Make it something casual."

It was the last order he'd have the right to give her, at least for the next ten hours. He stood before he could change his mind and went to his office to write out a letter of resignation.

When he made his way into the parking lot, Sam was waiting by his truck, as he had requested, wearing a nice pair of jeans and a white tank top. "Is this all right?" she asked, making a gesture that started at her tennis shoes and ended at her shoulder.

"It's perfect."

If she was startled that he opened the door for her, waited for her to get in and then locked and shut the door like an actual gentleman, she didn't comment on it.

It took about thirty seconds after they left the parking lot before she started talking. He grinned a little to himself. He had made a personal bet that she wouldn't make it a minute and half.

"Sir…" she began.

"Jack," he interrupted.

Sam turned her head and blinked at him. Maybe she thought this was something covert. Maybe she thought the truck was bugged. Or maybe she thought she was being kidnapped by a lunatic – and wasn't that really somewhat close to the truth?

"It's Jack," he repeated.

"You sound like Daniel," she complained. "Where are we going…Jack?"

"Pueblo," he answered.

"Uh...may I ask what's in Pueblo?"

"The State Fair."

A lovely flush of frustration stained her fair skin and he watched a muscle in her cheek jump.

Four years. For all those years it had been about the program, about his 2IC Major Carter. It had been about Daniel and Teal'c, and the team saving the world one wretched mission at a time.

For the next ten hours, it was about Sam and Jack.

"I turned in my resignation," he said quietly.

Her eyes, startlingly blue, widened in shock. "What!? Why?"

_The answer to that is simple_, he thought, _because I love you too much to keep being your CO, as if that's all I ever was or had a right to be, because I go crazy every time I have to put you in harm's way, any of you really, all of you, you're all too special, too important to be out there, but god,_ you, _especially_ you. _Carter, _Sam,_ I've wanted to kick you off the team and make you ride a desk just to keep you safe but I can't_, _I _can't _because you'd hate it and you'd hate me and it would kill you._

"Is this where we finally Talk About It?" he asked, emphasizing the last three words.

Sam ducked her head and then stared deliberately out her window. "You mean this thing between us?" she asked, quietly. "Is that why you quit?"

Jack eased the truck into the traffic heading south on US 85, adjusted the cruise control and then reached for her hand, grasping it firmly in his. Her hand felt solid and real, skin soft against his palm, a steady, feminine strength.

"The truth?" he asked.

Sam looked back him then, glanced once at his hand covering hers in the middle of the truck seat and then back up at him. He forgot how to breathe for a moment.

"I'd prefer that," she answered.

"I resigned so that we could have this day together and see how it goes," he answered.

"And then what?" she asked, voice rising, getting a little frantic."We just go back to the way things were? Hope Hammond didn't put through the paperwork while we were gone? Figure no one will ever know but us? How can you think that everything will just go back to normal again after this? How can anything _ever _be the same?"

_I'll know_, he thought bitterly, _but no one will ever know but me_…

Out loud, he barked, "Carter!" in his command voice. She reflexively fell silent at the sound of it.

He watched her do what he knew she was going to do. She exhaled a long slow breath to calm herself, shoving her response into some corner of her mind that wasn't concentrating on being furious with him.

"Can we just do this?" he asked, quietly. "Just have a few hours of nothing but me and you? Tell me you haven't wanted that and I'll turn the truck around."

Sam inhaled. Her lips parted and for a moment Jack thought he was going to have to find the next exit. But she had kissed him _back_, dammit, and he knew…he _knew_….

"You can keep going," she said softly.

He risked taking his eyes off the highway long enough to see her head tilt and a brief smile raise the corners of her beautiful mouth. Her expressive face betrayed her; it nearly always did. He saw hope and longing, wariness and a sudden stubborn defiance that matched his own.

"Carpe diem, huh?" she said.

Jack put both hands on the wheel to change lanes and snorted. "Now who sounds like Daniel?"

(0)


	9. Chapter 9

Still playing with Window of Opportunity.

Jack paid for her to get into the Fair, which caused her to give him a long searching look.

"So this is like a date?" she said.

"It's not _like _a date," he answered as they got their hands stamped with the initials CSF in smudgy red ink. "It _is_ a date."

"You ordered me on a date?" she said, slightly incredulous.

"Not bad for my last official order, huh?" he asked.

"Jack -," she began.

But he cut her off by holding up one finger and saying "Ut-uh! One day. You said I could have one day."

"Well, I didn't exactly say that…." Large, hopeful dark eyes looked back at her like melting chocolate, so she stopped. "Okay," she conceded, "What now?"

At that moment a capsule containing two screaming people catapulted into the air from behind a cluster of barns. It looked as if a giant multicolored hamster wheel had gone airborne. It shot skyward between two pillars and climbed several stories before it was snagged by its tethers to hang suspended for a brief, heart stopping moment before plunging back down and disappearing behind the barns again. Just as it reappeared in the sky, Jack turned to Sam, pointing at it, and said,

"That?"

Sam watched as the capsule disappeared again, tumbling, its occupants still screaming. She looked back at her former CO, fighting a smile.

"Cool," she said.

As they started on the search for the base of the ride, Jack said,

"You're not allowed to tell me the physics involved."

Sam gave a single, theatrical sigh and said, "Okay."

"But you can scream."

"I'm not going to scream."

"Yes you are." He looked down into her indignant blue eyes and wondered what she would do if he stopped and kissed her in the middle of the Midway.

Sam gazed back at him and said,

"No, I'm _not!"_

(0)

In the end she did scream, with sheer and complete joy, a sound he had never heard coming from her in four years of seeing each other almost daily. He would never have believed that so much energy could be contained in one slender body. They stumbled off the ride with Sam still laughing and it seemed natural to put his arm around her waist while they got their 'land' legs back and pounding hearts back under control.

And he laughed with her, not just from the adrenaline rush, but she was laughing so hard he couldn't help it.

"Holy Hannah!" she gasped, "How many g's was that?"

"Carter! No physics!" Jack growled, with no bite in it at all.

"Okay," she was back to some small amount of 'normal' though still a little breathless, "Roller coaster?"

Sam cocked her head in the direction of a metal giant doing some impossible looking twist against the clear blue sky. She hadn't moved out of the circle of his arm. He noticed that. Wow, did he notice that.

They rode the coaster, the Skydiver and the Zipper before deciding to take a break in the beer garden.

They ate incredibly messy ribs, steak cut fries and mugs of beer and argued about who was better – the Bulls or the Heat; and he was equally annoyed and delighted by her scientific analysis, so different from the macho bluster of the men he had the same conversation with. He had to give it to her. She had her facts to back up her opinions.

She was being remarkably cooperative. Jack wondered if she had decided that she was dreaming.

He paid again, still insisting it was a date though, at this stage of his life, he didn't have any inclination to 'date.' He never wanted to go through that particular dog-and-pony show again. He'd realized it eating ribs and beer at a rickety, red checked plastic covered table in the beer garden at the Colorado State Fair. If he took the time to go out he wanted it to be with someone he already knew; not with someone he had to watch his attitude with, or his language, or his cover story.

But he didn't want it to just be anyone.

He wanted Sam across the table from him – though it occurred to him that stuck in this endless loop, that was the last place he should really want her at the moment. He had been aware of her every moment – hyper aware; the way her strong, slender fingers stroked over the sweating beer mug, making tracks in the tiny drops, the way the lovely column of her neck flexed when she turned her head. Her fierce and passionate gaze and soft skin.

He wanted her and he loved her and for once, he allowed himself the luxury of feeling that without reserve.

They stood in the middle of the asphalt aisle between rows of open air shops and Jack unfolded the map they had been given at the gate.

"Want to see if we can get tickets to the Monster Trucks?" he asked.

"Sure," she answered.

"No, really, if there's something here you want to do, then say so. There's a petting farm…."

His voice trailed off as she stared at him.

"A petting farm?" Her tone bordered on withering though her eyes were still sunlit. One elegant eyebrow went up, "Really?"

"Really," he said, "They have bunnies and everything."

Sam rolled her eyes and looked at the map.

"Oh, look, there's a mechanical bull!" she said.

"After _eating?"_ he said.

"Sure, why not?" she asked.

"I'll watch," Jack said, refolding the map.

Sam shook her head and gave him an indulgent smile. They walked away, stride for stride as if they were off world together. Hands nearly brushing but not touching, not holding, not yet.

"You're sure?" Jack said, "Remember the bunnies… probably little chicks too?"

Sam's laughter was like wind chimes.

"I'm sure," she said.

(0)

"Is your girlfriend a rodeo pro?" The guy in the tight jeans and cowboy hat standing next to Jack had asked.

Jack eyed him. The guy was way more ruggedly handsome than should be legal and he watching Carter the way every man on the Base watched Carter, at least when they thought no one was watching _them; _and the way her body was rocking in motion to the mechanical bull wasn't helping. It was her third time and it was nitched up to almost full.

"Theoretical astrophysicist," Jack answered, hoping it sounded as intimidating to the cowboy as it did to him. He got a blank stare in return so he tried something equally as intimidating. "She trained to be an astronaut."

"No shit?" Cowboy said, blinking and looking genuinely impressed.

"No shit," Jack assured him.

The third round of eight seconds ended and Sam jumped off the bull to a round of raucous redneck applause.

Jack put his hand possessively in the middle of her back and steered her out past the crowd. His girlfriend…. _His….._

He took her out onto the Midway and bought her a hot pink straw cowgirl hat that was only slightly less colorful than the blush that stained her cheeks.

"So what now? "he asked, scrunching his fingers into the bundle of nerves at the base of her spine.

The day was slipping into evening and the lights were starting to come on, turning the Fair to magic. They walked through a rainbow kaleidoscope of color and sound.

"Is any date a State Fair complete without trying to win a gigantic stuffed animal?" she asked.

Jack eyed her. "How many EIC badges do you have?"

"All six, suh…Jack, and the Distinguished Marksman Badge," she answered.

Jack grinned in a positively wicked way.

"Let's go shoot at something," he said.

They found a shooting gallery set up like an old west bar and proceeded to shoot the hell out of it.

"The piano player is mine!" Jack shouted over the noise.

"I got the guy at the bar, and the mice in the corner," she answered, "This rifle is crap!"

"It's an air gun!" The wide eyed carny exclaimed, obviously terrified of what this woman might be capable of with an actual gun.

They ran up scores that quickly went to the top of the leader board, with Sam at the top. She also unlocked the bonus points and the poor carny was so rattled he let them combine points and walk away with two gigantic stuffed horses, complete with saddle and bridle.

Jack gave his to the first little girl they passed, Sam to the second.

They walked the displays and animal barns and at some point wound up holding hands. Jack got them strawberry lemonades in huge plastic cups that were shaped like the Asgard but fluorescent green and for that made them laugh every time they made eye contact from that point on.

"I'm calling mine 'Thor'," Jack pronounced solemnly, but when he met her eyes his were gleaming.

"Don't let him find out," Sam advised and that cracked both of them up.

Jack got her the pink cotton candy she asked for and they walked the Asgard cups out to his truck so they wouldn't have to take them on the rides. On the way out to the parking lot, she fed him a handful of cotton candy, since he had both hands full of the cups and as he gently sucked sweet sugar from the tips of her fingers he felt another rush of hot longing. Looking into her eyes he saw that she felt it too.

With Thor and his companion safely stowed in the backseat with her cowgirl hat, Jack caught her wrist and pushed her up against the truck, trapping her there for a moment, watching her carefully for any indication that she wanted him to stop.

_Please don't say stop,_ he thought, rather pathetically.

He stepped closer, wrapped both arms around her and felt the tremor that went through her body. Her eyes slipped closed. There was a hushed pause that lasted forever, in which neither of them moved, neither of them breathed, no one sighed or groaned or committed to anything but standing there with his big, muscular body pressed against hers and hers liquid and supple against his.

Jack pressed a hand into the base of her spine again and her hips surged forward to meet his. In contrast, Jack touched his mouth gently to the corner of hers and breathed her name. He tried to repeat the light kiss but she turned her head just enough to meet him fully. Aroused, soul taking flight, Jack held her tighter as her tongue traced his upper lip, following the shape of it. He swallowed a groan and concentrated on the sweetness of a moment that he might never have again. Like a man stricken with thirst who had suddenly found an oasis he drank in her kiss and frantically kissed back. They moved nothing but mouths and tongues, eyes closed, clinging to each other madly as they took a deep plunge into a long desired well.

They came up gasping for breath. Jack let go of her, pushed both hands into the hair on either side of her head and stared into her eyes. They were dilated almost to black, surrounded only by the thinnest ring of turquoise.

"Samantha," her name caught in his throat.

Her smile was breathtaking. She cupped a hand over the back of his neck. Jack swallowed hard and twisted his wrist just enough to look at his watch.

"We don't have much time," he said, heart throbbing.

Her lips parted in confusion. A wrinkle appeared between her lovely brows. He shook his head.

"Ride the Ferris Wheel with me?" he asked.

Sam looked over his shoulder at the giant wheel slowly spinning colored lights against the darkening sky.

"Okay," she said.

Thankfully the line was short and it was getting chilly so before too long they were settled in a swinging chair, rising and falling in the air. Sam snuggled close and he put his arm around her shoulders and her hand settled on his thigh and he thought she sighed with contentment.

A second glance at his watch and Jack closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting for the sound of Daniel's voice and the taste of Fruit Loops….

(0)

A/N The first thrill ride they go on is the Sling Shot. I have no idea what rides they actually have at the CSF, information online is really hard to find. This is based pretty much on way more experience with State Fairs than I really want to admit to. (The kids were in 4H…)

;-)

EIC stands for Excellence in Competition and refers to marksmanship contests.


	10. Chapter 10

The third time Jack devoted an entire cycle to Sam he made sure she knew about the whole space/time continuum mess first. It was important that she knew. He wanted her to be free to speak, without worrying about being overheard and what Kinsey or the NID might do with whatever she said and what kind of position she'd put Hammond in, much less the two of them.

And _shit_ but he must really be in need of some serious sleep or a break in this loop because he couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to _talk?_

"I want you to come back to the house with me," he said, quietly and she'd looked at him and blinked and it felt good to know that he could confuse her, put her a little bit off balance.

"May I ask why?" she replied.

"It's the only place I'm sure isn't bugged," he answered.

"How can you possibly…." Her voice trailed off at the look in his eyes.

Black-ops. Okay. If anyone knew whether his house was under surveillance, it would be Jack. She changed her question.

"Does it matter?"

"Does to me."

"Okay."

They took separate vehicles – Jack in his kick-ass alpha male, midnight black macho 4x4 quad cab and Sam in her sleek, efficient moonlight silver Volvo. Jack arrived just ahead of her.

He pulled up at the house and wondered if it was a mess inside and then shrugged because what difference did it make? He left room in the driveway for Sam and went inside.

The L-shaped house was slanted on the lot, slightly off kilter with the bedrooms and bathroom in the arm facing the street and the rest of the house tucked into the back. There was a long walk to the 'front door' from the street so a visitor had to be truly committed or truly invited. At first glance it was obviously an attempt to face the main living area where the creek and trees and green spaces could be enjoyed; but this was the house that Jack built – with its back deliberately turned on the world. There was a poem in there somewhere, or a children's book with an unhappy ending.

He hadn't been here in many, many cycles and he had just left this morning. The paradox made his head hurt.

The sound of her car in the driveway was too familiar, too normal. It would be much too easy to get used to and he wondered what she might do with this house, this bastion of masculinity, a male stronghold against the world. His fantasies had long ago stopped being about sex. Now they were about having another presence in his house – her presence. Sam sharing this space, warming it, taking off the hard edges and making it home, her stuff on his shelves, her matched set of dishes replacing the ones he'd picked up at various Dollar Stores after the divorce, her state of the art laptop in the office instead of his old clunker, her toothbrush next to his and her shampoo taking up space in the shower.

Her dazzling brilliance in his house, in his life.

She came in without knocking and stood hovering in the entrance for a minute. He imagined her coming like that and meeting her at the door with a kiss, nuzzling her ear, taking her coat and asking how she was.

"You want something?" he asked.

"You mean a beer," she smiled.

"Or water. I got water."

"Beer's fine."

She followed him into the kitchen the way she followed him off world – one step off his shoulder, on his 'good' side. Teal'c always took the side with the bum knee. He probably thought Jack had never noticed.

He handed her a bottle from the fridge with the neck caught between his thumb and forefinger, loosely, but her fingers brushed his when she took it. It was deliberate, it was effective. A sizzling charge passed between their fingertips and for a moment they stared into each other's eyes and had a dozen conversations at once without saying a word.

They went into the living room and she took the chair by the fire and he took the other one, facing each other on a slight angle.

"So?" she said.

"So?"

"Why are we here?"

"Why not?" He had a feeling he wasn't pulling off the casual innocence he was hoping for.

"Sir," she said and he wondered how she always managed that, chastising him without really ever overstepping the boundary into insubordination. She stopped and shook her head in a rueful way. "It's not fair."

"What's not?" Jack leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out in front of him and tried to look as unassuming as possible. He took a long swallow of beer and watched the emotions play out on her expressive face.

"I can say whatever I want to you right now, but I won't remember it and you will."

"So don't tell me anything you don't want me to remember," he shrugged, though his heart was pounding.

"And if it's something I want you to know, to remember?"

"Then I'll remember it for both of us."

She looked hesitant and hopeful at the same time.

"We can't do this," she said, finally.

"This?"

"Give in to it."

"It? _Christ,_ Carter, I'm the one with the reputation for being uncommunicative!"

"US!" she blurted out, "We can't do 'us', not the way we want. There's too much at stake."

"We could find a way to make it work," he answered, staring at his toes because her eyes were just too bright and honest.

"No we can't," she said, "Not with the NID and Kinsey breathing down our necks and…and… "

She broke off, one hand moving in the air helplessly.

"Fate of the world?" Jack guessed.

"You don't have to sound so off-handed about it," she said. "It's not like everything SG1 has accomplished isn't important."

"I didn't say that," he protested. He'd built that team. He was damned proud of that team and what it had done. "But isn't that what we're saying here? Bigger picture, saving the Earth, the whole Casablanca thing."

"Casablanca?" she repeated, lost once more when he took off on one of his tangents.

"_The problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans in this world_," he quoted.

Something flared in her eyes. He watched the shift from cruise control to over drive.

"Well maybe they matter to those two people!" she snapped. She paused, wondering if she had finally overstepped.

She took a deep breath, banked the fire in her eyes and quoted, softly, "_If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. And for the rest of your life."_

He gazed at her, took another drink and said, "You've seen the movie."

"A few times," she admitted.

"I'll resign," he said, bluntly and she gaped at him, shocked. "I mean it. The minute the planet is secure, I'll give it all up, if you'll wait for me."

"Don't," she sounded strangled.

"Don't tell you that nothing is more important to me than you are? That a huge part of being out there, leading this team, is making sure that you're safe, that the planet you call home is safe, that everything I do is for _you? _Why not? It's the truth!"

"It's a kind of truth," she said, "It's one permutation of the truth…"

"Don't go all science on me," he growled.

"You have a Masters in aeronautical engineering! Don't go all 'stupid' on me," she shot back.

It shut him up abruptly, at least for a moment. His long, hard stare finally got her talking again.

"You can't make Major without a masters," she grumbled, "I looked it up. It's a matter of public record, unlike most of your file."

"I can resign now if that's what it takes to prove it to you," he said, quietly.

She looked suddenly terrified. "No don't please," she begged, "I can't… I can't be out there without you, not yet."

Jack sat up, leaned forward and rolled the bottle between his hands for a little while.

"Then we have to talk about what can be in the future, not what we can do now."

"We can't do anything now," she said, "Even if you resign, if we try to have a relationship, Kinsey will still come after SG1. Teal'c and Daniel will get caught in the fallout."

Jack finished his beer, set the empty bottle on the floor by the chair and raked his fingers through his spikey hair.

"I know."

Sam put her beer down on the coffee table. She had hardly touched it.

"There's more," she said.

Jack sank down again, rested his head on the back of his chair and stared at the ceiling.

"I know that, too," he said, sadly.

"You're next in line," she said, unnecessarily, "Hammond retires and you get the program. I get SG1, most likely. The program will continue even if we wipe the Goa'uld out of existence and you're the only one who can take it over."

"Don't wish that on me," he murmured.

"You know it will happen," she said, quietly.

He shifted his dark eyes so that he could see her, but didn't move otherwise.

"And then you'll get the program," he said, "and they won't be able to stop me from retiring forever."

"Could be a while," she said.

"The question is," he said, "is that what _we_ want."

Their eyes met and the conversation was short and eloquent.

"Damn," he said, when it was over.

He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He was so tired suddenly.

Sam slipped out of her chair and was suddenly kneeling in front of him. Jack thought she must finally be getting the real impact of this time looping thing because it wasn't something she would ever have done under normal circumstances.

"When was the last time you got to sleep?" she asked.

"Dunno," he admitted.

"Come on then."

Sam took his hand and urged him to his feet. Ten minutes later they had the house locked up and he had stripped to his t-shirt and underwear and was collapsing onto his own familiar bed. He closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable on a mattress that he didn't seem to remember anymore; and then promptly snapped them open again when he heard the sound of Sam undoing her belt.

He lifted his head again and saw her pulling it out of the loops on her khakis.

"Carter," he began.

"Oh hush," she said, "We can curl up together and the world won't end."

Jack privately thought that the world ending with him curled up around Carter in bed really wouldn't be a bad way to put a halt to the current madness.

Her belt and boots were the only thing she took off, to his great relief. The mattress shifted as she laid down beside him, facing him. She put her head on his collar bone and her knees on his thighs, deliberately holding everything else away. Her hand rested on his ribs.

"You're not mad I don't want to….to…." he let it trail off, unable to say the words.

"Do you want to?" she asked, with more than a bit of challenge in her voice.

Jack closed his eyes. He couldn't look her in the eyes and lie.

"Yes," he whispered, "But we can't… not like this."

"Because you'll be the only one who remembers," she said.

"Yes."

There was a pause and he suddenly realized she was shaking a little.

"You know that's exactly why I love you, right?"

"You realize I'll remember that you said that."

"Yes."

He pulled her tighter, kissed the top of her head.

"I love you too," he said.

Sam sighed, tilted her head back to offer him her mouth and he accepted. It was soft and slow and gentle and lulled him like a campfire on a dark night.

"I'm going to get you out of this," she promised, when they were done, "I'm going to fix the loop and get it all back to normal."

Sleep was tugging at him.

"I know you will," he said, voice slurred. "Counting on it."

To his surprise she fell asleep first. He felt her relax one muscle group at a time, her breathing slowed, her lashes a long dark crescent stain on her cheeks. The last reserve of tension drained away. A man who had not slept in who-knew-how-many-ten-hour-cycles didn't need to be coaxed to sleep. The ache inside him eased a bit. Sam continued to soften in his arms, not holding herself quite so far away and her weight was so good and so right. He felt a small tingling of arousal but that was only sweetness because he didn't have to do anything about it.

Sam was in his arms. He could feel her breathing, against his chest, against his neck. He could feel her pulse beating.

For now, it was enough.

(0)


	11. Chapter 11

This is sometime after season 6. It can go just about anywhere in season 7 and will probably be at least two chapters.

(0)

All the misgivings Jack had harbored about having a woman on his team, much less as his 21C, had vanished after the first few missions together. Carter could hold her own; and if she attracted way too much attention at times, well, frankly, so did Daniel. Both seemed equally unaware of it; or in Sam's case, just aware enough to keep out of trouble.

But some of those misgivings had come back to the forefront on their current mission. Daniel had identified the culture as pre=Canaanite, which might explain why the population had taken one look at Carter and fallen to their knees in supplication. They had proclaimed her to be Sapash, their sun goddess, long believed to be searching for her long lost and resurrected lover, Baal.

It had taken Daniel a long time to convince them otherwise. That hadn't stopped the men from following her with their eyes, if not their actual physical presence. As a man, Jack understood this completely. As her CO, it made him grind his teeth.

He had taken Teal'c aside at one point just before the feast being thrown in their honor and said,

"Stick close to Carter, would ya? Without looking like you're sticking close?"

"Indeed," Teal'c let the word reverberate in the still evening air. O'Neill could almost taste his displeasure. There was currently a crowd of dark-haired, tall, good-looking men clustered around Carter like flies around a drop of honey. Teal'c had surged forward like the tide, parting them and drawing Carter away on the pretense of showing her something in the Temple.

Unfortunately, Carter's crowd of admirers all went with them. Jack didn't fail to notice that the hand Teal'c had clenched around his staff weapon seemed unusually tense.

Jack would have ordered them all back through the Star Gate long before this if it hadn't been for the intriguing piece of technology in the Temple. Just the fact that this had _anything _to do with Baal was enough to make him want to pack it up. Carter's announcement that this appeared to be some kind of anti-gravity technology had caused an icy rip of memory to claw down his spine. The generators were unfinished, as if they had been abandoned and Jack had a very strong desire to join the ranks of those that had abandoned them.

Duty. Honor. Mission objective.

_Damn_. He'd agreed to stay for the feast at the end of the week, wondering how he was ever going to force himself to eat. Every protective instinct he had was in overdrive; and the extra attention being paid to Carter wasn't helping. Of course, it was Carter's effect on the population that had made all these negotiations go so much more smoothly. They had overall been treated like honored guests, given very nice individual rooms and had their every need seen to. But several days of this had worn O'Neill's patience thin.

Daniel was happily immersed in translations of the technical manuals, Sam in crawling all over the machinery and Teal'c in watching Carter while being careful not to look like a body guard watching a superstar.

This left Jack to brood and use up valuable energy keeping unpleasant memories at bay.

He stood outside the Temple with his hands resting on his P90, watching the preparations for the feast and thought it was going to be a long night.

(0)

Jack woke with the absolute certainty that something was wrong. He was sleeping alone, of course and by his own choice. At first he heard nothing but the night – wind in the trees and the night walking insects native to this planet.

Then he heard the scream.

Full of rage, full of horror, splitting the night and bringing Jack to his feet with his soul on fire. Sam's voice…..

He grabbed his P90 and ran out into the hall. The room they had given Carter was around the corner from his and by the time he got to it there was already a crowd. Teal'c was already shouldering his way through a crowd of people who looked sick and horrified. Daniel was on his heels and Jack skidded into the room behind him.

"God _damn,"_ the curse left Jack before he could stop it.

There was a man lying on the floor in a pool of blood with an Air Force issue knife stuck in his shoulder. In spite of the blood, Jack recognized him as Keret, the son of the local chieftain, Dargon. There was a cluster of people around him and Jack was whole heartedly relieved to see that he was alive, even if he had been in much better shape earlier in the evening.

The room itself seemed to be in order, only the bed was disheveled, pillows scattered on the floor; and of course the blood all over the floor.

But there was no sign at all of Carter. None.

Dargon staggered into the room and gave a choked cry at the sight of his son. Four people carrying a stretcher hurried in behind him.

Fury erupted in Jack. With a roar, he dropped his P90, slammed Dargon against the nearest wall and shouted,

"_What did you do to her_?"

"T-t-t-to _her_?" Dargon stammered, eyes wild, "Look what she did to my son! She's crazy…."

"_WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?"_

"Jack!"

Daniel grabbed Jack around his shoulders with one arm. One hand wrapped around Jack's wrist and tried to pry his fingers from around Dargon's throat.

"Jack," Daniel was far from calm himself but his voice had the desired effect. "He can't tell you if you strangle him."

Jack relaxed his grip but didn't let go.

"S-ssshe lured him up here, I h-hhheard them at the feast," Dargon began.

"That is a lie." Teal'c's voice and far, far too soft.

Dargon looked past O'Neill into the Jaffa warrior's eyes and whimpered.

"I sat beside Major Carter at the feast. She rebuked Keret's advances throughout the night."

Teal'c had walked forward and now stood shoulder to shoulder with O'Neill, towering over the terrified Dargon. He reached for the knife attached to his belt and held it inches from Dargon's face.

"Where is she?" Teal'c asked.

"I don't know," Dargon squeaked.

Jack's hand tightened on Dargon's throat and Daniel's grip on Jack tightened.

"Jack," he said, pleadingly.

"Daniel," there was warning and fury in Jack's voice.

"I want her back too!" Daniel said, "But this isn't going to help."

Jack relaxed again and finally let go of Dargon's throat, only to grasp a handful of his robes. Daniel let go of Jack's shoulders but took hold of his forearm just in case. Jack's barely contained fury still had everyone else in the room frozen. Only the medical team that had come for Keret was moving, rushing out of the room with the injured man.

"Okay, Jack, think," Daniel said, his words hurried and desperate, "Sam screamed and nothing makes Sam scream. She was scared and…and…and angry; angry enough to hurt someone badly… and she may have just taken off…."

Daniel broke off with a sharp inhalation that made Teal'c's gaze shift to him for just a moment.

"What did you give her?" Daniel demanded.

Dargon swallowed but didn't answer. Jack shoved him harder against the wall and Teal'c laid the blade of his knife against the man's neck.

"What did you give her!" Daniel raised his voice for the first time.

"N-nnnothing," Dargon stammered and then amended it quickly when Jack growled, "A mild sedative… to calm her…. She wanted to stay with Keret! She signed a marriage contract. It's been filed with the priests at the Temple. She didn't want any of you to know! She's afraid of you, all of you." He paused and looked at Teal'c, blinking rapidly, "Especially you."

Daniel thought it was a really stupid thing to say to a man who was holding a knife sharp enough to cut bone. Teal'c's hand tightened on the hilt.

"Daniel," Jack demanded information with that single spoken word.

"They drugged her. It's the only explanation. They probably put something in her drink at the feast. Something strong enough to scramble her thoughts but still capable of signing a contract," Daniel said, "Then they came back here and when….. when…."

He stumbled to a halt and looked miserable.

"Daniel," O'Neill snarled.

He finished it in a rush, "When Keret tried to consummate the marriage her military training kicked in but without her normal rationale to control it."

The color briefly drained from Jack's face and then returned in a heated flash of rage.

"You son of a _bitch,"_ he snarled.

Daniel let go of Jack's wrist and O'Neill immediately went for Dargon's throat again.

"What did you give her; and don't make me ask you again," Daniel said and somehow Dargon thought that the simple sentence delivered in a voice that cut like a north wind was more frightening than the knife or the hand at his throat.

"Capstamane!" Dargon gasped out.

Daniel inhaled again, closed his eyes and looked away. Teal'c actually growled.

"What?" Jack demanded of them both.

"It is a very powerful mind altering drug," Teal'c said, "Used by the Goa'uld on reluctant pleasure slaves to make them more…..willing to be violated."

Every muscle in Jack's body corded again as he shoved Dargon against the wall for a third time. This time Daniel made no move to stop him.

"What will it do to her?"

Dargon had gone completely pale, certain now that he was staring into the eyes of his own death. He whimpered again.

It was Teal'c who answered, in a voice gone low and ominous, like thunder rolling across mountains.

"A few small drops will over stimulate the body while making it increasingly difficult to think."

"How much did you give her?" Jack snarled.

"I-IIII don't know," Dargon stammered and then, when all three men took a menacing step towards him he said, quickly, "A spoonful! Maybe more, I-III'm not sure. We have not used it for hundreds of years. But she is the closest thing to our goddess that we had in centuries. We had to find a way to make her stay."

Daniel muttered something that was probably in Mandarin. Jack wasn't sure. He only knew that Daniel only cursed in Chinese when he was very, very upset.

"She must be found right away," Teal'c said.

"Why?" Jack asked.

"Such an amount will drive her to the point of madness," the Jaffa answered. "If she does not submit to being …. Used for the relief it will bring… She will become more and more violent."

Jack poured out a long string of brutal curses that he had not used since his combat days.

"She'll never submit to …._that_," Jack spat.

"That will leave violence," Teal'c said.

"Okay, look, we have to find her first," Daniel said. His ice blue eyes locked with Dargon again. "Where is she; and don't make me ask you that again either."

"I don't know! I swear!"

He broke down into a useless sobbing heap then. Disgusted and sick with fear, Jack let him go. Dargon sank down to the floor and covered his head, weeping.

The three members of SG1 turned to face each other.

"The window's open," Daniel said.

Jack looked at him and blinked. Even though it always seemed that Daniel was lost in his own thoughts, it was also true that most often Daniel caught small details the others missed.

Teal'c moved over to the window, where sheer curtains were blowing in the evening breeze.

"O'Neill," he rumbled.

They joined him and Teal'c gestured to a bloody footprint on the floor and drops of blood on the windowsill. Jack took a long deep breath.

"Okay, full gear, radios on and we split up. I want to know the minute she's found."

They left the room, skirting the puddle of blood. This time they didn't have to shove their way through the crowd still at the door. They pressed fearfully up against the walls to let them pass.

"What do we do when we find her?" Daniel asked, sounding breathless and a little scared.

"Find something for her to destroy," Teal'c answered.

Jack and Daniel exchanged a long, meaningful glance. Daniel hoped Teal'c would find her first. The Jaffa might have the best chance of dealing with Carter in her current state.

Somehow, though, Daniel had an awful sinking feeling that it was going to be Jack who found her.

(0)


	12. Chapter 12

Jack leaned against a tree in the breaking dawn and watched the figure pacing back and forth across the window of the abandoned guard tower. He paused to take a swallow of water and hit his radio.

"Teal'c, Daniel," he said.

"Go ahead." Teal'c.

"Did you find her?" Daniel.

"Yeah, I got her."

"Where?" Daniel again.

"I'm about two klicks out of the city to the south at what looks like an old guard tower. Carter's inside."

"What's she doing?" Daniel asked.

"She's on the second floor and seems to be trying to take it apart with her bare hands."

"Good," Teal'c said. "You should allow her to continue, O'Neill."

"We'll come to you," Daniel said.

"No," Jack answered.

"No?" Daniel said, puzzled.

"I need both of you to go back to the city first. Daniel, you check on Keret. Take him to the SGC if you have to, or bring the SGC to him. Just keep him alive. Teal'c, you get supplies and then come join me."

"Supplies for how long?"

There was a crash from inside the guard house, a ripping sound like a tree falling over. A second later a huge piece of paneling came flying out the upper story window, accompanied by a loud, frustrated scream. Jack watched the paneling hit the ground and splinter into pieces.

"However long you think this drug will take to wear off," Jack answered.

"I understand. Teal'c out."

"Jack," Daniel said.

"Just keep Keret alive, Daniel. O'Neill out."

He clicked off the radio and regarded the tower again for a short time. When nothing more came out the window, he pushed off from the tree and went to the wooden door at the base.

He entered the tower cautiously, well aware of the rhythmic pounding noise coming from above him. He found a circular stair hugging the far wall and climbed slowly, one step at a time. He drew his zat, knowing it would only work for him once.

Jack found Carter in the small upstairs room that looked like a storm had blown through. It was dusty from long neglect. There were scattered pieces of furniture, most of them shattered. A table with three legs listed against one of the walls. Sam had the other leg in her hand and was systematically using it like a Louisville Slugger on what was left of the wall paneling.

"Carter," Jack said.

She whirled around, eyes wild, and hefted the table leg over her shoulder like a club. Her expression held only revulsion and no recognition at all.

"Stay back," she snarled.

He raised the zat and they faced off against one another for a moment.

"Get out!" she shrieked.

Jack heard the desperation and fear in her voice. She was cornered and she knew it. He circled slowly, getting out from between Sam and the door, even though he could still stop her if she made a run for it and she would know that too.

"Come on, Sam," he said, softly. "It's me."

Some of the tension ran out of her but she didn't entirely lower the club. She was still watching him like a cobra about to strike.

"Sir," she gasped.

"Yeah, it's me," Jack answered, lowering the zat.

"What's wrong with me?" she whimpered.

"You've been drugged."

Sam stared at him for a short, inflammatory moment and then slammed the table leg into the wall. Another piece of paneling splintered into nonexistence as Sam swore with military elegance.

Jack took a step closer to her and she spun into another defensive stance.

"Don't touch me!" she demanded, and then changed it to a plea, "Don't touch me."

"I won't," he put the zat away and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Teal'c had warned him about this – that by the time he found her the drug would have stimulated her to the point where pleasure was now pain, so sensitive that contact with _anything _would hurt.

She was wearing the shredded remains of a pale blue tunic that mercifully was still clinging to her in all the appropriate places. Her hair was damp around the edges and tousled in way he didn't think she intended. Her skin was flushed almost scarlet but she was shivering and her lips were nearly blue. She had probably come in here seeking warmth and shelter. Her feet were bare and cut in places.

"I don't believe you," she whimpered.

Jack's temper flared. He started to get it in check and then remembered who he was talking to. This wasn't some fragile hot house flower, no matter how fragile and disheveled she looked at the moment. This was a decorated combat veteran Air Force officer who could shoot the head off a pin at fifty yards.

"Well why the hell _not?" _He roared. "I'm your commanding officer! If I say I'm not going to touch you, then I'm not going to touch you! I've managed to keep my hands off of you even when it was something I wanted more than any else in the world. I've managed to not touch you even when I knew we _both _wanted it! _Jesus_, Carter! I've never touched a woman in my life who just told me not to! Why would I start with you?"

Sam stood there, panting on the verge of sobbing. The need to believe him was bright in her eyes.

"_Jack_," her voice shook, frantic, helpless.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

Jack unclipped his pack and let it hit the floor. He knelt in slow motion, not taking his eyes off her. He still wasn't sure she wasn't going to come at him with the table leg.

"I brought you some clothes," he said. He pulled them out and tossed them in a pile in the middle of the floor, along with her boots. "You're cold. Put them on." Her eyes opened wide in protest and he went on, coaxing, "I'll go back downstairs. When you're dressed, we'll go for a run. Just the two of us. I'll keep you safe. Fresh air, open space."

"You'll keep me safe?" Such doubt and so much hope.

_Always, Sam, always….._

"I will."

Sam let the table leg slip from her fingers and said, "Okay?"

The defeat and hopelessness in her voice made him want to scream. He went back downstairs while she dressed. His knee was berating him for even suggesting something like this. He was feeling the dampness and the miles he had already walked searching for her.

It didn't matter. If there was nothing left of Jack O'Neill when this was over he had just promised that he would keep her safe. It was a promise he intended to keep.

(0)

"Damn it, Carter! Slow down!"

She had run off onto a side trail that had quickly disintegrated into a barely visible path through heavy brush. Jack would have struggled with a machete in his hand. His lungs were burning and his knee was throbbing. It hadn't slowed Sam down even a bit.

"Major!" Jack growled, with every bit of military command he could manage, "Halt!"

Sam stopped inches from a patch of heavy thorn bushes and spun around. Her glazed eyes searched the sides of the path for a place that she could get through. When they settled on him she took a step back.

"Stay away from me," she said. Jack didn't know if that was for her safety or his.

Jack held up a canteen.

"You're all scratched up," he said, getting his voice under control with supreme effort. "You're bleeding pretty bad."

Sam looked down at her bare arm and blinked in surprise at the streaks of red running from a half a dozen cuts.

She had stripped to her sleeveless t-shirt and ripped her camo pants off at mid-thigh. This offered her bare skin no protection at all from the sun or from the unforgiving foliage of the country through which they ran.

But right now the pain of cuts wasn't nearly as painful as the rubbing of cloth against her over-sensitized skin.

"Carter," he said, softly and she looked up at him, panicked and desperate. He set the canteen on the ground and backed away from it, "Rinse your arm off and take a drink."

Sam crept forward slowly and picked up the canteen. She winced when she splashed water down her arm, from the cuts or the contact of the water he didn't know.

"Drink," he encouraged.

She eyed him warily but Jack kept completely still. The skin on her nose was turning pink and she had another deep scratch on her cheek. Jack wanted to hold her, tenderly care for her cuts and bruises. His heart was the only thing aching more than his knee.

He knew if he moved she'd either attack him or run.

"Car…." He broke off, staring into the wild blue eyes locked with his, feeling like he was falling. "Sam," he finally whispered, "Drink something. Please."

She drank, without taking her eyes off him. Jack took the moment to get his breathing back to normal and flex his knee. At least she was standing still for five minutes, which was more than she had done since they had started this several hours earlier. His pack was full again, of all the things that Teal'c had brought, enough to survive for days.

Unfortunately Sam had reacted with uncontained fury to Teal'c's presence. The only time Jack had seen so much as a glimpse of sanity in her eyes was when she looked at him.

When her voice had broken on the single syllable of his name, pleading, begging,

_Jack…_

He had refused to let the Jaffa follow them even at a discrete distance. This made Teal'c decidedly unhappy but, to Jack's immense relief, he had obeyed the order to return to the city.

Abruptly, Sam dropped the canteen, turned on her heel and ran through the brush ahead of them as if it wasn't there.

Jack sighed and moved forward. He was going to get her through this. He just wasn't sure how much more either of them could take.


	13. Chapter 13

Jack leaned against a boulder and chewed slowly on a power bar and watched as Sam took an axe to an old cabin they had discovered. It fulfilled Teal'c's advice to find something for her to destroy and more importantly kept her in one place where he could watch her. The cabin had been held together by little more than moss and mud by the time they found it and Sam had attacked it like a battering ram. She had found the handle of an axe inside and was making good use of it.

Jack had sneaked around until he found the axe head itself and even though it was rusted almost beyond use, he had buried it in the woods at a safe distance. No sense in taking any chances.

He finished the power bar, shoved the wrapper in his pocket and rested his head for a moment. The loud sounds of destruction assured him of Carter's whereabouts and, god, he was so tired.

He couldn't believe the drug-driven pace she had set. Anger poured from her and the look in her eyes always hovered just on the edge of sanity. Jack understood the anger, even if he wished he could talk her down from it. She was furious with herself for becoming vulnerable and being a pawn in someone else's misguided game. She was taking it out on everything in her path, even her own body; well, on everything but him. When she looked at him there was nothing but sadness and a kind of longing he didn't want to acknowledge but was all too familiar.

It would be all too easy to fall asleep. There was the wind sighing in the pine trees, something squirrel-like scurrying and scolding in the branches over his head, birds, the occasional insect. He closed his eyes…..

And then abruptly opened them again. Where were the sounds of rupturing wood? Of an axe handle hitting walls. With a rush of adrenaline, Jack got to his feet.

Sam was sitting with her knees drawn up and her arms folded across them. Her face was hidden in the bend of her elbow. Her entire body was trembling violently.

Approaching gingerly, Jack said, "Carter?"

Her head came up but she didn't look at him. Her eyes still had that lost, unfocused gaze and tears were running down her face.

"I'm so tired," she murmured, "So tired but it's still there and….."

Jack wouldn't have thought it as possible but Sam's body began to tremble even more, until he muscles locked and she collapsed onto her side. She clenched her teeth and all the lines of her face and jaw went taut. Cords of tension stood out on her lovely, long neck. Jack wanted to touch her but she looked as if she would snap if so much as a breeze brushed against her.

And he had promised, he had _sworn, _not to touch her.

He slammed his hand down on his radio instead.

"Teal'c!" he snapped.

"Go ahead." The Jaffa's answer was so instantaneous Jack knew he had been waiting to hear from him.

"Is it Sam?" Daniel's voice, muffled, off to Teal'c's side.

"Sam's having some kind of seizure," Jack used every bit of his military training to keep the panic out of his voice.

"That is good," Teal'c answered.

"It is?" Jack asked and he heard Daniel echo him in the background.

"The drug is leaving her system," Teal'c explained.

"What do I do?"

"Stay with her," Teal'c rumbled.

_Jesus….. _Jack ground his teeth down on the sarcastic answer that leaped into his throat.

"How's Keret?" Jack asked.

"Alive." So Teal'c – straight and to the point. "He has already signed the annulment."

"Good."

"Indeed."

Jack wondered just how much Teal'c's laser like stare and Daniel's frigid anger had done to encourage that particular signature.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"Keep her safe."

_Been doing that…_

"Yeah, anything else?"

"No."

"Okay."

"O'Neill."

"Yeah?"

"It will not last long. Teal'c out."

Long? It had been hours! Or it seemed so…..

When it finally passed, Carter curled up in a ball and began crying so hard it broke Jack's heart into pieces.

_Damn it…._

_Don't touch me….._

He didn't care anymore. He sank to the ground, ignoring the shrieking protest from his knee, gathered her into his lap, wrapped his arms and legs around her and held her tight.

Sam let out one choked sob, shivered and then flung her arms around his neck and hung on for dear life. She pulled her knees up like a child and cried. She no longer had the strength to fight him.

As Jack rocked her and stroked her hair and murmured utter nonsense into her ear, he tried to tell himself that it wasn't any different than holding Daniel when he had come down from his sarcophagus addiction, or when he had finally broken down over Sha're's death. A member of his team was in pain. It was his duty, his job, his responsibility for their health – physical and mental. It was no different….

Except that wasn't the way it felt. It felt like he was holding the shattered pieces of his own soul.

It had to be more than just longing for something forbidden. He was a self-admitted pain the ass who didn't like the word no. But this was more than just wanting something he was being told he couldn't have.

Sam shifted in his arm and sobbed out,

"I'm sorry."

Jack leaned back and gave her his very best puzzled look.

"For?"

"This!"

"You didn't do _this,"_ Jack said, "This was done to you."

She gave a little bark of laughter and dissolved once more into a flood of tears.

"Look, Carter," he said; then paused to pull her around to face him. He cupped the side of her head in his hand and tipped her chin up so that she was looking at him. One broad thumb wiped away the tears staining her cheek. "They could have drugged any of us. We all ate and drank. You didn't do anything the rest of us didn't. So quit beating yourself up and concentrate on getting this crap out of your system."

She sniffed a few times, her breathing ragged and her body still shaking.

"Is that an order?"

"Do I have to make it one?"

"No, sir."

_Sir…._ Okay, so she had called him Jack in the depths of the drug-induced insanity and he had let it go. Now he missed it.

"Okay, then come here."

He stood and helped her to stand with him. When it became obvious that she couldn't stay on her feet he put her arm aver his shoulder and slipped an arm around her waist.

_Gah,_ did she have to fit so perfectly into every bend and curve?

He took her to the sleeping bag he had arranged earlier and made her sit. The day was slipping into evening – had it really only been _one_ day? – and Jack wondered if she was shivering from cold or from withdrawal. He had found a stream not far from here but was very reluctant to let her get wet with night falling.

He got the well-stocked first aid Teal'c had sent and the extra canteen.

"This is gonna hurt," he warned.

"Worse than when I set your leg in Antarctica?" she asked.

Jack smiled a little at the flash of spirit.

"Probably not," he said. He reached for her arm but hesitated until she gave it to him. He took her left hand in his and used his right to wash away the blood and dirt and sweat. The cuts weren't as bad as he was afraid, caused mostly by thorns and brush. She winced a few times but kept still. He could feel the anger and tension still humming inside her. When he had finished cleaning and treating the cuts he began gently rubbing his palm from her wrist to her elbow.

Sam whimpered a little at first but he kept at it.

"Come on," he mumured, "Just relax. It's almost over. You're doing great. Are you hungry? Teal'c packed your favorite MRE?"

"No not hungry." She was watching his hand as it traveled up over her skin, over the knotted muscles that still seemed clenched with ugliness. It was like he could draw the poison out with nothing more than touch. It was so good, such a relief, to let something touch and not hurt, to feel good again.

To let Jack touch….

She shivered but not from the cold.

Jack had moved up her arm, palms and thumbs easing the tightness over her bicep; and, god, who knew the skin of her inner arm was that soft?

"Sir," she whispered.

"Easy."

His voice was a soothing balm over her soul as he switched to the other arm and worked the same magic. Water, antibiotic cream, slow, gentle massage…..

Sam let out a low moan as if her bones had sighed and started to melt.

"Easy," Jack repeated.

Once, on PX9-3982, he'd been stranded with Daniel for two days waiting rescue. Daniel had been seized by a blinding headache. With no first aid supplies of any kind, Jack had healed him with a long deep pressure neck massage. No big deal. Emergency first aid. Use what's on hand, no pun intended.

This was _just_ like that….. wasn't it?

Sam had closed her eyes. The wrinkles in her forehead had smoothed. The slanted rays of the waning sun painted her in shades of orange and gold. Light scattered in her hair and in her eyelashes. She was luminous.

Jack laid her hand in her lap almost reverently, poured some water on a scrap of washcloth and wiped the sweat and dirt from her face.

"I can do that," she murmured, without opening her eyes.

"I know," he said, but he made no move to let her.

When she opened her eyes his face was inches from hers. Sam stared into his eyes for a moment before he broke away and moved behind her. Robbed of the sight of him, Sam stared unseeing at the ground in front of her as his hands kneaded the tight muscles of her neck and shoulders, pressing and forcing away the demons of the drug. Then his thumbs were running down either side of her spine until her back became supple again and she began to feel lovely. Sam sighed in bliss.

"Lay down," Jack said and she did.

The cuts on her legs weren't quite as bad, though there was one on her outer thigh that caused him to linger with some concern – deeper than the rest, requiring the cloth to clean it. Who knew his long, blunt fingers could be that delicate? An evening breeze ruffled her tangled hair and raised chills on her skin.

At least she thought it was the breeze that caused the chills….

Each leg stroked from ankle to thigh, each bruise and cut soothed by strong, certain hands.

Jack's hands….

When he was done there was nothing left to unravel. Sam sat up, wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. Jack stroked one hand down her back.

"Hungry now?" he asked.

She shook her head, leaning back to look at him.

"No, cold."

He rummaged in his pack until he found his jacket and a blanket. He slipped the jacket over her arms carefully and zipped her into it. Then he put the blanket over her legs.

"I'll start a fire and make some coffee. You stay put."

She nodded.

Jack kept an eye on her while he built the fire and finished making camp. Her stillness might have concerned him once. After a day that had stretched from pre-dawn to dusk and been filled with unrelenting movement, he was just god-blessedly grateful for it.

By the time he got to her with a mug of coffee, she was sitting inside her sleeping bag. She reached eagerly for the cup and he cautioned,

"Careful."

"Hot?"

"Ummm…."

Sam took a sip and her hand went to her mouth and her eyes flew open.

"Oh my god."

"Teal'c sent whiskey," Jack explained.

Sam forced herself to swallow, coughed a few times and gasped,

"He thought of everything."

"Yeah, he did."

She finished it anyway. He was thinking about pouring her another cup and coaxing her one more time to eat. He moved the coffee further from the heat, put more wood on the fire and turned to check on her.

The empty cup was lying on its side. Sam was prone on her back, one arm over her head , sound asleep. She was so impossibly lovely, he thought.

He hated the thought of disturbing her but he went and gently placed her arm inside the bag just before zipping it up. Her hand closed on his shirt and pulled him close.

"Jack," she murmured.

"I'm here."

"Stay."

"Okay."

He got his sleeping bag and moved it close to her. It was awkward but he left the top unzipped and gathered Sam, sleeping bag and all, into his arms. Exhausted, she slept, against his chest, while Jack lay and watched unfamiliar stars appear in the sky.

(0)

Author's note: I did not intend this to be any longer, but let's see what the Muse says about it…..


	14. Chapter 14

This will end the story arc of Sam being drugged and taking off into the woods. Usually I tie these up with Jack thinking about her and I thought it was time we saw it from the other POV. Sorry this took so long, the Muse is still only about 75% happy with this.

(0)

Her dreams were fevered and vivid, as if everything she had kept repressed for years had been given license. In the assault on her senses surf pounded in the distance and she was lying on soft sand, enraptured by him. He touched and caressed, his mouth warm and smooth and skilled, his hands firm, calloused but gentle. Dark eyes, smoky with desire, smiled down into hers as he bent to kiss her. She sank her fingers into his shoulders….

_Jack….._

Sam tried to move and a flash of agony cut into her dreams and woke her with cruel certainty.

Military trained and warned by the first flash of pain, her eyes opened but Sam didn't move. She was in a sleeping bag, in the woods and some bits of memory from the last day were flitting at the edges of her consciousness. She turned her head just enough to see Jack, lying on his back, sound asleep.

It wasn't something she had ever seen before. He was _always_ up before the rest of them; or he moved the split second one of them did. She tried to imagine what the last day had been like for him, that he was now so exhausted he wasn't instantly aware that she had moved.

She became aware that one of his arms was outside his sleeping bag and that his hand was lying on top of hers. Though separated by the thin space age fabric, she could feel the warmth and strength of his hand and a breathless quiet spread through her body. The touch of his hand filled her with a tight awareness and stolen kind of bliss. His uncommon stillness gave her a chance to study him in the breaking dawn.

It wasn't the first dawn they had seen together and probably would not be the last. Long mission that required being on watch together had led to many such moments, when they had let Daniel sleep and Teal'c remain in kel'no'reem because neither wanted to break the magic of being alone together in the Universe.

In those long nights they had established something more than friendship, more than the relationship demanded of them by their rank and title. Often dawn would catch them unaware, still talking. It amazed her that the man who often cut her off in mid-syllable during the day, would listen now with constant attention, without interruption and sometimes, startlingly, with pointed questions that gave her a glimpse of the razor sharp intelligence he kept hidden behind feigned glazed eyes and boredom.

And sometimes, she could get him to talk to her. Usually he would start with the stories of weird crap that had happened during the long course of his military career – chasing an angus bull that had accidentally gotten through a break in the fence at Laughlin in Texas, the time he was on patrol and his idiot CO had shot himself in the foot trying some Clint Eastwood spin-o-rama with his sidearm. Get Jack talking about guns and he could go on all night.

In between the words something had stirred between them, something willfully alive and vibrant. There were times when Jack's keen gaze would make the back of her neck tingle. A casual touch would sometimes linger too long; glances strayed and spoke eloquently of things never said out loud.

Elusive moments not half as real as the weight of his hand over hers in the early light of this foreign world.

As far as any of them could tell Jack didn't have a private life and his social life consisted of, well, _them._

He was almost always at the Base, a social life that was wholly work-associated. Track him down on the Base and he was almost always with a group of people – other SG teams in the rec rooms, working out in the gym, challenging someone to ping pong, or just hanging out in the cafeteria making himself available to whoever needed to talk. She wondered if he knew how much the Base personnel adored him. He knew all their names without looking. He knew who was in the infirmary and why. He knew who was off world and when they were due back.

Look for him at home and he was almost always alone, waiting for them at times, but even if they just dropped in, he was alone. Most of the time he wouldn't have eaten. There would be granola bar wrappers on the counter, a frying pan soaking in the sink, a recycling can full of Coors cans and brown bottles, pizza boxes scrunched up in the garbage can. A few times they had surprised him and found a pan of water boiling on the stove top for instant oatmeal or Top Ramen, prompting Daniel to chide him about living worse than a starving grad student.

The truth was they were almost always in each other's company in one way or the other. It was a lot more 'fraternizing' than Jack was supposed to do – at least with her. Daniel was civilian. Teal'c was an alien. So they didn't exactly fall under any of the same rules.

But it made sense. It was too dangerous to truly relax around people without the same security clearance. With each other they could get as wasted as they wanted, or just vent about things best not said on Base.

Sometimes Sam wondered if they were all just too tired to seek other company, so they defaulted to friendship in their off hours and gathered with Jack at his house; and she could be with Jack surrounded by the comfortable buffer of Daniel and Teal'c and no one said anything.

But even when he was with them, Jack was somewhere safe inside himself. Sam doubted he had reached out at all since the death of his son and the disintegration of his marriage. Sam had the feeling that Jack thought he'd had his shot at it – a normal life, wife, family, career – and it hadn't worked so he had given it up. He'd withdrawn from 'normal' and embraced the Stargate Program.

Jack lived in his own concentrated solitude – but somehow did it side by side with all of them.

And Sam didn't know how to enter that solitude. Not really. When it came to pain and sorrow and things he had seen and done that no one should have to see or do, Sam didn't know how to help him. Jack was out of her league. She knew it during the rare times, during their midnight watches, when he would talk about Black Ops – not any of the things he couldn't tell her – but about his men and his experiences, even in the funnier stories, she saw the shadow of the nightmares that he had lived. She'd been in war, which meant she knew just enough to let her imagination fill in the blanks.

She wanted to be there for Jack. But whatever he had damned up behind the wall in his soul, Sam suspected it was best left there. Get Jack to love again, to admit to love, to _feel… _A single crack and the flood might kill them all.

He moved finally, twitched slightly and the pressure on her hand increased. The slight movement seared through the fabric and the skin and bones of her hand and drove straight into her soul. When he opened his eyes he was looking into hers. Maybe the drug was still in her system but it seemed to Sam that different times suddenly mingled - past and present and impossible suggestions of a future that might include waking up and looking into each other's eyes. The moment was entirely unreal. A tingling sensation rose from her toes and made her shiver.

"Are you cold?" he asked, instantly.

"A little," she lied.

"I'll kick that fire back up," he said, getting out of the sleeping bag.

Sam was acutely aware of Jack, how graceful he was, how easily he moved the tall and muscular body that had been wounded so many times in service to their county. Maybe it was the result of those injuries but his movements were never wasted, each one controlled and flowing into the next. This man who was their commander, brother, mentor, taskmaster, brother-in-arms…..

He got the fire crackling and started fresh coffee. Then he came over to squat down next to her. To her utter shock he brushed her tattered bangs off her dirt streaked forehead. The touch had such tenderness in it and her heart leapt like a sprung trap.

"Hungry?"

"A little," she said, and that was truth.

"Well for breakfast we have a choice of oatmeal and coffee; or coffee and oatmeal."

She smiled a little.

"I guess I'll have oatmeal and coffee," she said.

She started to get up, winced as a dozen aches and two dozen cuts announced their presence and sank back down.

"Stay there, "he said, drawing the sleeping bag back up over her shoulders. "We've got a while. Teal'c and Daniel are going to have to find us."

"You don't know where we are?" she asked.

Jack shrugged, "I didn't stop to check landmarks."

He got up then and she settled back down to watch him move around the camp. This man had gone through hell chasing her through a dense wood, once again saving her life. Ablaze and overloading, her senses had been scattered into every imaginable direction and Jack had gathered her back together.

At some point she would cry – reassembling after something like this didn't happen in seconds but over a long period in which she would be stunned back into memories - and he would hold her.

And she wanted to tell him suddenly – _something,_ anything….

"Sir!" she began.

Jack turned and she caught the faint flash in his dark eyes and suddenly electricity seemed to stir the air between them. Sam felt a sudden willful, erratic flare of desire from a heart gone wanton with love and need. But all the sudden treacherous words she had wanted to say got stuck in her constricted throat and she made due with a vague, helpless gesture and a pleading look.

Eyes and expression dark with understanding, Jack said, softly,

"Don't worry about it, Carter" and went back to making her breakfast.

(0)


	15. Chapter 15

O'Neill sat in the truck with the crossword on the steering wheel, tapping it with the pencil and wondering why he was sitting here doing this when he knew he was already late.

It had started as a lark – Carter challenging him to the NY Times crossword. He'd taken the bet, even knowing he was playing her. If he didn't know the answer, he would just find the answer. O'Neill was a firm believer that you didn't need to know something. You just needed to know how to find it. It was one of the reasons he had surrounded himself with the best and brightest minds in the SGC. Every member of his team was gifted in one field or another and O'Neill could call on each one of them at will.

Then he had seized on the insane idea of riling Carter up by filling in gag solutions that all made sense in a twisted way and still lined up perfectly.

That had now proved harder than he'd thought it would be; mostly because he kept wanting to fill in words that were all about her, all about how he felt, subtle clues. For example he'd really wanted to write Samantha for 12 down – one of the natural wonders of North America – but it didn't fit. No version of her name fit and besides that wasn't even subtle. He'd erased it and put Coors Brewery.

There were a lot of places on the crossword where something had been erased.

Eighteen across was 'a synonym for unrequited'. He'd been ignoring it since figuring out that Shanahan didn't fit.

He'd been staring at the crossword without seeing it long enough for the truck to start warming up inside. He'd been fine earlier, getting ready for work, right on time. He was a jerk at times but he was always where he said he would be and when he said he would be there. He wasn't like this. What the hell was wrong with him?

Then Daniel had called and casually said, "Repository….Ancients…"

And even Daniel should know better than to blindside a guy with something like that. It wasn't like Jack called him and just casually said, _So remember that time you were dying in excruciating agony from radiation poisoning?_

Trying to short circuit the phone in the sink and cut Daniel off hadn't worked. Trying to make Daniel complicit in cheating on the puzzle hadn't helped because then he'd thought about Carter. He'd forged ahead as if his stomach wasn't doing the twist.

He had no idea what time it was when he finally got out of the truck and entered the elevator that would plunge him underground. It must have been a lot later than he realized because he found the three of them standing at the door like disapproving parents waiting for a teenager – a gauntlet of frustrated eyes, hands on hips, watch tapping and snarky remarks.

"Hammond's waiting."

_Crap._

He pushed past them with more bravado than he was feeling, handing off the crossword to her with a cocky smile.

There was something humorous in that her outrage over his answers was more potent than her outrage over his lateness.

Hammond's pointed 'nice of you to join us' cut though. Jack knew he deserved more than that. He'd have cut an Airman to ribbons for being this late. Hammond really did give him too much leash sometimes. He was going to have to be extra good to make up for it.

Then Hammond remarked that he was surprised Jack was willing to risk something like this new mission and Jack stared for a second. Who had said anything about a mission? With his team? Who said _anything_ about willing? It was a mission. It was necessary. It was what they _did_. What was he supposed to say? _No, I still have nightmares and flashbacks from the last time. No I won't risk myself or Daniel or …or…or Carter. So send someone else this time!_

He tried to focus on the conversation. He baited Daniel, something he could do in his sleep. Then he abruptly registered that Daniel was in a pissy mood.

A _really_ pissy mood.

He tried to listen to Daniel describe all the reasons this was a good idea with words like knowledge and known universe. Then Sam's voice was hitting his ear and his nerve endings and even though the horror of what she was saying was much too personal for him, her voice was like an aria.

_I don't want to leave her,_ he thought. That's what all this was. He felt it all over now, with a quiet desperate certainty. No matter what else she was or would ever be to anyone she, she was _his_ 21C and that wouldn't change any time soon.

But this mission filled him with a cold, miserable sense of dread. He tamped it down with effort and tried for sarcasm, lobbing an 'easy fella' at Daniel in response to Daniel's suggestion they had primitive physiology.

It was a minor mistake. When Jack looked at Daniel he knew Daniel could tell something was wrong. He probably also knew what it was. His sympathy for Jack would only go so far in the face of saving the world.

Was that the source of the mood?

_Christ, O'Neill!_ He berated himself, _fucking focus here._

Was Daniel was planning on sacrificing himself and counting on his formerly Ascended mind to be able to handle it?

_Over my dead body,_ Jack thought.

Which was exactly how this might go, because he'd be damned if any other member of his team was going to sacrifice their gifted minds to science, even if the whole fucking galaxy would go down in flames .

For the rest of the briefing he was appropriately attentive – eyes off Carter, no more snarking at Daniel. Hammond gave them a go and he stood up and shook himself out of his funk.

There was a job to do and he'd faced worse. This time they knew what was coming. This time they were prepared. He desperately wanted to leave Carter – and Daniel – for that matter behind. But he would need Daniel to read the inscriptions and Carter to figure out how to get it out of the wall undamaged; and he and Teal'c would protect them with their own lives because that's how his team worked.

Daniel gave him a funny little look as the room emptied, head down, eyes over his glasses.

"What?" Jack snapped and Daniel blinked and said, "What?"

But their eyes met and clashed and sent the same message.

_I won't let you do it._

This time Jack blinked. He made a low growling sound in his throat and then said,

"Get geared up, Daniel," as he stalked out of the room.

Daniel's snotty answer floated down the stairs in his wake. "Yes, _sir_."

(0)

A/N This will open the missing scenes and additions to Lost City. This is a very complex episode with a lot going on. These chapters may become their own stand alone story so the focus won't entirely be on Daniel and Jillian.


	16. Chapter 16

This is a re-imagining of a chapter in Sunshine and Shadow, cross posted here because it is mostly Sam and Jack.

(0)

After the pizza arrived and Jack raided his kitchen for every bit of junk food he could find they talked and swapped stories about the Air Force Academy and Daniel had done what he did best – pretend to be stoned on a couple of beers, guiding the conversation away from the two five hundred pound gorillas in the room – Jack's slowly disintegrating brain and what they were ever going to do without Hammond - keeping things light and making a horrible situation somehow tolerable.

On any other day Jack would have found that unbelievably annoying and called Daniel on it. Today it was somehow endearing.

They'd eaten and played cards – not poker, not against a math genius and someone with the ability to keep his expression in permanent neutral. They scrolled through cable channels for a while and Jack left it on Discovery for a while just to listen to Daniel have a fit at the 'scientists' and their current ancient aliens theories. Sam joined in on the complaining. It was automatic and Jack knew it. Neither member of his 'science department' expected much from TV anymore. But when they were at Jack's, relaxing and detoxing and letting things be ordinary in their extraordinary lives, then they let their thoughts run free.

Jack wondered where they would go now for these kinds of evenings. Daniel's probably…

Hammond left just after night had settled over the suburban rancher. The other three had lingered long enough for another couple of rounds of gin rummy and then Daniel had given Teal'c a questioning look and got a raised eyebrow and single inclination of his head in reply.

They stood up in one unified movement, giving away the lie that Daniel was too drunk to drive.

Jack walked to the front door with them and Daniel turned abruptly, standing maybe a little too close and his expression maybe a little too intense.

"I'm sorry about this, Jack, "he said, "I know you really wanted to be alone but Teal'c …. Teal'c was going on and on about camaraderie and honor. Well, on and on for him…."

"Daniel," Jack interrupted, "It's okay. It was… fine."

He reached for Daniel's hand, clasped it and pulled him into a classic A-frame man-hug – shoulders touching, one arm around each other briefly – and broke apart quickly.

"We'll fix this," Daniel said, fiercely.

"Go home, Daniel," Jack said, "Get some sleep."

Jack got a firmly gasped forearm style good bye from Teal'c and then they were gone and he was alone with Carter.

It felt right. His life had begun again seven years earlier when she had walked into the Briefing Room and he had looked into those incredible eyes for the first time. Perhaps it had begun a few days earlier then he'd been on the roof watching Mars and thinking about Pathfinder and a dark sedan had pulled up in his driveway.

But really, for him, the important part – the part where Sam Carter was in his life and at his side – had started in that room that day. The moment had crackled with something like electricity, a charged clash of personalities, attraction and resistance in equal measure. It had been a lightning strike of recognition and forbidden desire that had jump started his heart after years of having it lie dormant and forgotten.

Kowalsky had teased him about it for days, said that if you looked closely you could see the scorch marks on the walls.

Jack figured they were still there.

It made sense, somehow, that it would end with the two of them together.

Shanahan notwithstanding…..

Sam was in the living room clearing empties off the coffee table. Jack rescued the last bottle of stout before she could sweep it up with the rest and followed her into the kitchen. He watched her rinsing bottles and putting them in a separate black garbage bag for recycling and realized that for him this is how it's always been. She was helping him clean up after company. The way a roommate might… or a spouse.

She was also unusually quiet. He stepped up next to her and helped rinse glasses and dishes that had been there for days and put them in the dishwasher.

He knew they couldn't talk about what she had come to talk about. The very fact that he had resisted had been his answer. She'd tried to ask him about Sara and he knew she wondered if someone had called to tell Sara what was happening and if Sam had really thought they were going to go there then she had been sadly mistaken.

He'd sat there wishing desperately that the phone would ring, or a smoke alarm would go off or a nuclear holocaust would descend on them. Because his career maybe didn't matter anymore, probably was over for good short of a miracle. But hers did. Sam Carter was destined to be so much more than the woman who helped Jack O'Neill clean up after company. He be damned if he would be the one who stood in her way or said something stupid and screwed that up for her.

So they sat there with their military oaths and Shanahan and seven years of history filling up the silence.

Then he skirted sideways around the issue when she said she should have done it. He gave her the only compliments he could, called her a national treasure and said that saving the planet would make all this worth it. Maybe something in the way he said it that wasn't sarcasm or a flip attempt at bravado; maybe it was because he had spoken with something close to actual honesty….

But their eyes had met for a fraction of a second and they had seen each other with utter clarity.

Then there had been the knock on the door he'd been praying for earlier, the disingenuous 'hello?' and the rest of his team invading his privacy and the moment with Sam had been gone.

They finished cleaning up and Sam wiped her hands on a paper towel and tossed it into the garbage under the sink.

"I'll get out of your way now," she said, with a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

Jack shrugged. "Stick around for a while," he said, "Come up and look at some stars with me."

Christ, he thought, nice job of keeping her from being able to leave with some dignity.

But her smile became brighter and she said she would like that.

He made a vague gesture at the outfit she was wearing.

"You might be cold," he hedged.

"I have a change of clothes in the trunk," she answered, "Stuff I forgot to leave in my quarters. I can change."

"Okay," he said, still feigning nonchalance.

The truth was he just wasn't ready for her to go.

She changed into sweats and they went up onto the roof deck. It was a clear night with a new moon, perfect for stargazing and Jack was monumentally glad he would get to have a night like this at least one more time.

And he would get to have it with her. They sat down and leaned on the rail, shoulder to shoulder and she reached a hand out for the bottle of stout with a questioning expression. He gave it to her. She put it against her lips and sipped from the rim, where his mouth had been a moment before, letting the dark liquid flow onto her tongue until there was enough for a mouthful. She closed her eyes as she lowered the bottle and swallowed.

Then she opened her eyes again, wiped the bottle on her sleeve, twisting it slightly and handed it back to him.

He took it from her without making eye contact, because he hadn't been able to take his eyes off her the whole time. He took a long drink from it and then let it dangle by the neck between his fingers.

He pointed to Alpha Centauri and identified it.

"Think we'll ever get there?" he asked.

"Not by Star Gate," she answered and that was all it took for the long discourse about how much the binary star system was like Earth's sun with respective masses of1.1 and 0.9 of the Sun's and how they never came closer to each other than a billion miles and there was plenty of room for environmentally habitable planets around them. By the time she got to gleefully telling him how they even shared the unlikely ratio of one atom of iron to 31,620 atoms of hydrogen, he had stopped really trying to follow what she was saying and simply gotten lost in her voice and her presence.

When she finally wound down he said, "Stay?"

"The night?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He shrugged and knew she could feel it because they were sitting so close.

"Carpe noctem?" He'd meant it as a joke but it failed. Sam tensed and almost sat up. He got her around the shoulders and pulled her back. "Latin, not Ancient!" She relaxed but only slightly.

"Maybe someone should be here in the morning… in case," she said.

He nodded.

"But there's only one bed," she cautioned, "And neither of us fit on your couch."

Jack stood up and held out a hand to help her up.

"Come on," he said.

They went back to the house and he vanished into the second bedroom for a moment. She heard him rummaging around and when he came back he was carrying two rolled up sleeping bags.

"You got a toothbrush?" he asked.

"Travel one, in my purse," she answered.

She got what she needed and went into his guest bathroom. When she came back out he was on his lower deck rolling out the sleeping bags.

"This okay?" he asked.

She smiled. "Carpe noctem," she said and then shivered.

"Fastest way to get warm is to get in," Jack said, indicating one of the bags and scuttling into the other. "These are rated for the arctic."

Sam got in and lay on her back for a while staring up at the sky. It was almost alive with stars.

"Wow," she said, finally.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, "Nice night. Those are all yours you know. That's your playground. I'm leaving it all to you."

Sam let out a breath and felt the burn in her eyes and in the back of her throat. She turned her head to look at him and caught him with half his face in shadow and the rest bathed in starlight. He was looking at her with open, unguarded adoration.

"Goodnight, Carter," he said.

Sam had to swallow hard a few times because she could whisper, "Good night, sir."

(0)


	17. Chapter 17

A/N - I have debated whether or not to include this chapter in Moonlight and Steel. It is another excerpt from my Sunshine and Shadow series but Lost City is an all-encompassing episode and it's impossible to tell the story of two of them and not tell the story of all of them.

In a perfect world I wanted this to be between Janet and Sam but the PTB decided to take Janet away. In Sunshine and Shadow, Sam is best friends with Jillian, and this is how I handled it. To this point in the series, Jillian still works because she has been completely off screen and not altered anything that we have seen so far.

Ultimately I decided that Moonlight and Steel is really Sam's story and this missing scene deserved to be here.

(0)

Sam was in her lab, just as Jillian had known she would be, avoiding Jack now and all his packing and interlacement of foreign words into his vocabulary, avoiding having to look at Daniel for an interpretation of her usually blunt and articulate CO.

She looked up when Jillian came in the door and said,

"No."

Jillian hesitated for only a moment and then came in. She'd been friends with Sam for four years. She'd never had a sister but had come to think that maybe this was what it would be like. She understood that it didn't mean _no don't come in._ It meant _no we're not going to talk about IT._

'It' was too big and Sam had been like this – abrupt and distant and closed off- since Jack O'Neill had decided to stick his damned thick pigheaded skull into a supercomputer, like some incompatible external hard drive, a thumb drive for a completely different operating system.

Jillian understood that Sam had been thinking the same thing for days on an endless feedback loop over which she had no control. _No no no no, not again, no, I can't lose him, I can't listen to this, I can't watch this, I can't relieve him of command, I can't, I can't, I can't, no, no, no….._

She'd gone with Sam in another attempt to contact the Asgard and shared Sam's frustration that they can't locate the Tok'ra. Maybe 'shared' wasn't the right word, but she certainly understood. Even in the days when she and her father were mixing signals he would have come if she had called him, if Daniel's life had been at risk. It wasn't so much the Tok'ra or the Asgard that were making Sam feel abandoned. It was Jacob.

Jillian wanted to offer some kind of reassurance, the certainty she herself felt that the Universe just wasn't that cruel, that the price of saving the Earth wouldn't be losing Jack O'Neill.

But one look at her friend's stricken face drove Jillian to silence. Here in the relative privacy of her lab, Sam looked as if her heart was collapsing under its own weight.

Jillian was sometimes relieved that SG8 didn't seem to have any of the internal conflict of SG1. Maybe it was just different Type A personalities. Maybe it was because Mal was completely devoted to his wife and Rusty to his and Scotty was now stupid-in-love with Annie and she had never been romantically interested in any of them. Jillian had fallen in love with Daniel the first time they'd been introduced and she was still in love with him, even though he was a long steely way from the long-haired somewhat dazed 32 year-old man she had been introduced to.

SG1 had the scratchy passive-aggression versus blunt alpha male drama of daily existence with Jack and Daniel. It also had this thing between Jack and Sam that no one acknowledged because it couldn't be acknowledged.

The relationship between the conflicting personalities of SG1 was against all common sense and against all the odds stacked against them. It was their MO. It was how it had been since the start. SG1 should never really have existed, or they should all have been reassigned after the first year. Sam and Daniel and Teal'c were all too valuable to risk in the field. Daniel should have given it up after Sha're's death. But they were all too driven, Sam by ambition and Daniel by curiosity. Teal'c especially was a warrior and fighting was his existence. He would never have agreed to stay in the mountain as the resident alien.

And Hammond had known exactly what SG1 looked like. He had known since 1969. There had never been a decision to make about any of them. He'd never quite understood how they all wound up in the past but had shrewdly surmised that it had something to do with the Star Gate. He'd known Daniel Jackson was alive the moment he'd seen the young man's photograph in the 'Eyes Only' file on the first Abydos misson. He's seen him sitting in a transport van right next to Jack twenty eight years earlier and both of them had looked exactly the same then as they did now. It was why he had pushed Jack so hard, threatened Abydos with another nuke, bullied the man into admitting the truth because there wasn't any other way to get it out of him. Hammond knew Captain Sam Carter was also part of the mix and Teal'c was certainly unforgettable

So they had been SG-1 for seven years, against all common sense and against all odds. Even forging ahead when they had been temporarily deprived of Daniel, even with O'Neill in melt down they were still SG-1 and it was still up to them. The bond among them was insanely complicated but unbreakable. Breaking up SG1 would somehow rock the foundation of the program. It would happen someday, inevitably, but it couldn't happen _now._ They couldn't fall apart now.

_Sam_ couldn't fall apart now. She had a job to do. Daniel had once described Sam to Jillian as a strip of steel moonlight. Looking into her friend's pale face and too-wide eyes it seemed to Jillian that she had never been more so.

So, 'no' really meant we're not going to talk about IT. Jack was dying and even if it meant something to Jack and even if it felt to Sam like the world would end no matter what they did if Jack died, it didn't matter at all to the Air Force or to what they had to do.

But Jillian understood more than just that. Alpha women, both in love with alpha men. If either she or Sam ever came face to face with an Ancient, they'd have to be physically restrained from violence.

"Okay," Jillian said, finally, "I just wanted to make sure I saw you before you left. Daniel left me a stack of crates. Is there anything you want me to grab if I have to evacuate?"

Sam almost sagged in gratitude at Jillian's understanding, the conversation they had been avoiding for years still held at bay. They left unspoken the things Sam couldn't quite have, the things Sam couldn't quite feel.

"The extra laptop. I'm taking the main one with me," Sam answered. "Do you want me to put it with the crates?"

"I can take it now if you want. They're moving the crates to the Gate Room just in case," Jillian answered. She gestured over her shoulder. "You want to go get something to eat? There's chocolate cake in the commissary and I've got Dove bars stashed in Daniel's office."

"Chocolate?" Sam asked, looking interested suddenly.

"You can't go into hyperspace without first consuming vast quantities of chocolate. It's a rule," Jillian said.

Sam got up, grabbing her extra laptop off the shelf behind her as she did, and they walked out the door side by side.

"It's a rule, really?" Sam asked.

"Absolutely," Jillian assured her.

"It's a good rule," Sam observed.

(0)


	18. Chapter 18

Continuing missing scenes from Lost City. This is after the credits roll on part 2.

(0)

They stood in complete stillness as if their lives had been frozen with him, as if they had no idea how to proceed from here without him. They'd been running full tilt with wildfires at their backs and had now skidded – dead stop – into a wall. With adrenaline still racing it had always been hard for SG1 as a whole to go from 'fighting-for-your-life' to – 'now-it's-over'.

And this didn't feel 'over'. This felt 'wrenched out of your control – too bad- get over it.'

SG1's world had just spun off its axis.

Daniel looked first at Teal'c, for some kind of guidance, some kind of assurance. He met a tear-filled gaze that was abruptly wrenched away. Teal'c walked up to the frozen coffin that held O'Neill, looked for a moment, turned around and sank slowly into a seated position, as if he would just stay there on guard for the rest of his life if that is what it took. He pulled up his knees, braced one elbow and rested his forehead against the heel of his hand. His eyes closed in pain. His other hand stayed clutched around his weapon.

Daniel breathed as if it hurt. Watching Teal'c sit down was like watching the pyramids crumble; like watching Gibraltar fall into the sea. It left Daniel feeling even more stranded and so he looked at Sam.

She was more frozen than Jack, pale as starlight on snow. He watched her eyes slowly close. He watched tears leak from the corners in slow motion.

Their radios crackled. Bra'tac's voice pierced the silence.

"_SG1, are you ready to return_?"

Daniel fumbled for the radio, found it by instinct.

"Give us a minute," he begged.

A brief silence, then a choked sounding, "_Very well_."

The voices, the noise, was shocking in the sepulcher stillness. It broke something open in Sam. She made a small, strangled sound that was saturated with pain. Her jaw clenched against it. Her body shook with the effort of holding it in.

"_Sam_," Daniel whispered and reached for her, caught her around the back of her neck and pulled her against him.

It was probably good that he had his arms around her when her knees gave out and her legs were trembling too hard to stay up anymore. Her weight fell against him and they sank to the floor together. Daniel gathered her into his lap, wrapped his arms and legs around her and began rocking while she cried. His fingers threaded up into her hair. His palm pressed against her cheek and kept her head against his chest.

He refused to offer her the lie that it was all right, that it would be all right. His throat was too closed to speak.

Daniel flashed back on a moment in the ship, just before they had stepped into the rings. Jack had already been almost lost to them, language gone, counting on Daniel to speak for him. But he had reached for Sam's face with his fingertips and his eyes had briefly focused, soft and warm.

"_Carter_," he'd said and they all knew what it had cost him to make her name the last thing he lost forever.

Jack loved Sam. The soft, inquiring way he had always looked at her was to mask unrestrained but impossible love. Daniel thought of all the times Sam and Jack had seemed to block out the rest of the world and only see each other.

He _loved_ her and she loved him.

Daniel glanced at Teal'c and saw the same knowledge in his eyes. They had never said it. They had never hinted at it. They had deliberately done what they had always done – covered for each other.

It was all Daniel had to offer her - the willingness to keep covering for her. So they were going to stay here until she stopped crying, until she stopped shaking and clinging to him and speaking in broken, halting syllables that were caught in between choked sobs.

"Can't….can't…." _live without him… leave him here...think….breathe…. _"Have..to…do…something…."

That assurance he could give her. He took his glasses off and scrubbed viciously at his eyes for a moment, swallowed frantically at the dryness in his throat.

"Sam," he said though it came out hoarse and strangled, "We _will_ do something. The Asgard can't ignore us forever and we'll go find them if we have to. This is who we are. But we have to leave him here now. It's the only place he's safe…."

He stopped when she broke into another spate of hard sobbing.

"Sam," he tried to get her to look up at him but she turned her face into his shirt and refused. "Sam, it's technology. You trust that right? Even when Teal'c and I don't, you always do. We need you to show us that you trust this."

Daniel turned to look sideways at Teal'c, who met his eyes and nodded. He understood what Daniel was doing. He'd back him up. Sam might fall apart but if they needed her she would be there.

She cried for a little bit longer. Teal'c looked miserably torn between wanting to guard O'Neill and wanting to comfort Sam. Reluctantly he dragged himself away from the vertical casket and moved around so that Sam was bookended between them. He put his hand on her back and rubbed softly.

"Major Carter," he said, "We cannot just stay here and do nothing and we cannot take him with us."

They let her cry herself out. When she stopped Daniel and Teal'c both knew it wasn't because she was somehow over it. They both knew that 'it' was someone she loved, someone they all loved in different ways. That wasn't something you ever got over.

When she finally stopped just short of hiccups and sat up, drying her eyes on her sleeves. She let them help her to her feet, teeth gritted against the image of Jack still and pale, corpselike and unreachable.

She clung to Daniel's arm with Teal'c hand between her shoulder blades and swayed.

"You okay?" Daniel asked, gently.

She gave him a shaky attempt at a smile.

"Yeah," she said, "I'm supposed to be in command."

Daniel's expression was filled with irony.

"So give us a command," he said.

Sam gave a short, sharp bark of strained laughter.

"Will you follow it?"

Daniel shrugged. "As well as I ever follow any order."

"So I'm screwed then, right?"

"Pretty much," Daniel answered, humor softening his red-rimmed eyes. "Teal'c will probably listen though. So there's that."

Sam looked back and forth between them for a moment and clung to their presence.

"Okay," she inhaled, "Daniel, will you help me look at this and translate the text so I can figure out what it does and Teal'c will you contact Bra'tac, maybe return to the ship and find out what happened and report to the SGC for us?"

Teal'c gave her a respectful nod of his head and moved off, reaching for his radio.

Together, Sam and Daniel figured out how to take readings on Jack's condition, where the gauges were, where the controls were. It all seemed to be automated. Jack was in a deep state of hibernation.

"My god," Sam whispered, sliding her hand on the red lines that were monitoring him, "His heart his barely beating."

When Daniel didn't answer for a long time she looked at him and found his eyes fixed on her with ice blue honesty.

"Then, I guess, "he said, slowly, "Yours will just have to beat for both of you for a little while."

Sam swallowed, looked away and then looked back at him and Daniel watched her surrender.

In the mountains he sometimes found rocks in which flowers had gained a foothold, and grown and become strong until the stone cracked. The moment was like that. The truth took hold between them and the silence cracked under it, shattered.

It was still a fragile truth and SG1 would continue to protect it…

But it could no longer be denied.

(0)


	19. Chapter 19

Bra'tac landed the scout ship at Peterson and stayed just long enough for Sam, Daniel and Teal'c to thank him again and say goodbye. He resisted all attempts to get him to stay, preferring to return immediately to Chulak and report the destruction of Anubis.

One dark sedan drove Bra'tac immediately to Cheyenne Mountain, where a Presidential authorization to use the Star Gate was waiting for him. Another car took SG1 to the office of the base commander. Dr. Weir was waiting for them on a computer screen. While Sam reported what had happened, Daniel got on the phone and called Jillian. She had listened in silence while he rattled on. Uncertain who might be listening he switched rapidly back and forth among languages - Ancient, Mandarin, Japanese, Gaelic, a long string of Abydonian, all mixed with an occasional smattering of 'archaeologo-geese'. It would be incomprehensible to anyone trying to listen in. Even if they could find translators large bodies of it would be too context-specific to make sense of.

When he finally wound to a halt, there was a long stillness on the other end.

"I love you," she said, not caring who heard that and understood it.

"I love you too," he answered.

Daniel put the phone back in the cradle on General Shelton's desk and looked at Sam. Dr. Weir was no longer on the secured connection from the SGC. Sam was talking to Pete.

Daniel was startled for a moment and then hoped he had stopped the reaction before it showed on his face. He schooled his face to stillness, which wasn't really all that difficult now that he had talked to Jillian. He was suddenly beyond exhausted.

"No, Pete, I'm fine," Sam was saying, with her eyes too bright and her smile too forced.

"I was sure you were dead,' Pete said, sounding anxious and unbelieving.

"No, really, we're all fine," she said, and then hesitated, added reluctantly, "Almost all. Look, I'll explain everything when we get there. We're going to get cleaned up and they have a car waiting to bring us back. Just wait for me, okay?"

"Okay, "he paused a moment and then said, "I love you, angel."

"Yeah," Sam said with another tight smile, "Same here."

She gripped the mouse with the bones in her hands showing through and clicked off the connection. The screen went immediately to a shot of the Air Force Thunderbirds flying in tight formation.

She stood up.

"Jill okay?"

Daniel shrugged. "Probably as much as any of us."

They thanked Col. Shelton and then an Airman escorted them to the locker rooms.

(0)

Showered, in borrowed sage green generic Air Force BDUs, and fed, the three remaining members of SG1 slept in the car. Teal'c, in the front seat beside a cautious looking Airman, pulled his borrowed Air Force cap down low over his eyes, eased the seat back a little and appeared to sleep.

Daniel slumped into one corner of the back seat with his legs as far out in front of him as he could get them, folded his arms tightly across his chest and turned off as if someone had hit a switch. Sam held out a little longer, but the highway outside the tinted glass was boring and the silence was overwhelming.

She woke up when the sedan slowed to exit the highway she woke up briefly to find that she had keeled over sideways and was resting on Daniel. He was heavy, boneless and deeply asleep. She wondered for a moment just how 'military' they had managed to make him, that he had learned the need to grab sleep when it was offered, when there was nothing else to do for that moment in time.

Still exhausted she settled down against him and closed her eyes. They had less than a mile before the security entrance, then the parking lot.

One more minute, she thought.

But it was Teal'c who shook them both awake when the car stopped to let them out at the Base entrance.

Maybe it was seeing the familiar, taking the elevator, stopping at the checkpoints, signing in a half a dozen times, but it hit them all at once. They knew it and resisted looking at each other as the elevator slid slowly into the earth. Then Sam had started it. First she glanced at Daniel and then at Teal'c.

They'd left him behind.

_They'd left him behind._

Something they never did. Something they had risked their lives and careers and everyone's good will to never do. Never leave anyone behind.

And that was exactly what they had just done to the man who had drilled that into them relentlessly.

"It is not the same," Teal'c said, deeply and slowly.

"How?" Daniel demanded.

"O'Neill is not in prison," Teal'c said.

"Isn't he?" Sam and Daniel spoke the same words at the same time.

Teal'c's eyebrow went up. "He is unlikely to be tortured in his present condition and he is not dead; nor will we leave him there."

None of them said for now. None of them knew exactly how long 'for now' would even be.

"He will be returned to us," Teal'c finished with certainty. Apparently he was finding rest and food just as restorative as his teammates.

"You sound like you believe that," Sam said, looking at him hoping for assurance.

"I am," Teal'c replied.

"Why?" Daniel demanded.

Teal'c pinned Daniel with his dark, fathomless eyes, looked down without lowering his head.

"You were Ascended, Daniel Jackson," he said.

"Yes," Daniel answered, not seeing the connection at all.

"Now you are not," Teal'c explained.

Daniel blinked at him, looked at Sam, who shrugged and looked mystified. At this point Daniel pinned Teal'c right back and waited for more. Teal'c relented after a moment.

"I have learned that no human condition seems to ever be permanent," he said, "Therefore, O'Neill's condition is not permanent and we will work to rectify the situation."

Daniel opened his mouth and then closed it again. He was spared from trying to articulate a response to that as the elevator doors slid open.

Jillian and Pete were both waiting. Pete was a cop but Jillian was more familiar with the sounds of the SGC, even the elevators; and she had been fighting the Goa'uld for seven years. Her reflexes were sharper. She was in motion before the doors opened.

For a split second, Daniel was so paralyzed with gratitude at seeing her again that he couldn't move; which gave Jillian the chance she needed to hug Sam and then Teal'c before turning and flinging herself into Daniel's arms for a full embrace.

Sam was aware of the passionate embrace going on beside her. She'd never seen them hug like that. They sank into each other, trying to meld together through their clothing. Jillian had her feet braced, her arms around him tight, giving him permission to be weak. Jillian adored Daniel. He was her entire world; and he adored her. That was what Sam saw in the intimacy of that embrace.

She put her arms around Pete and tried to hang on just as tight. She didn't want permission to be weak. She was aware that Pete was holding her tight and saying something and she could feel the scratch of his chin against her neck and realized this whole thing must have him really freaked out. He probably hadn't slept in the time she had been gone.

"God, Sam, I thought you died out there. I was out of my mind," he said.

"No," she said, "I told you. I'm fine. Just a little tired."

He had leaned back to look into her eyes but now he pulled her close again and held her against his shoulder as if he expected her to cry.

But she didn't cry. If she stayed true to form, in the next few days or weeks or months of trying to free Jack, she'd want to cry at the oddest times – in the shower, at the grocery store, in her car, in the locker room. But she didn't need to cry now. She'd done that for Daniel and Teal'c.

But she didn't want Pete to know that she didn't need to cry right now. It felt good to be comforted. She couldn't tell him everything that happened out there. She never could; and there were things that happened on his cases that he couldn't tell her. It was a fact of their relationship and they both accepted it.

But she wondered how long two silences could continue to pass as dialogue.

Daniel and Jillian had moved away from them with her supporting him as if he was wounded and maybe he was.

"I don't want to go out to dinner," she said, putting her hands on Pete's shoulders and pushing him back as she focused on what he was saying.

He laced his fingers against the small of her back, pulled her against his hips and said, "What do you want to do?"

She reached behind her, found his hand and said, "Come with me."

Ten minutes later she was stripped of her borrowed clothes and herding Pete towards the bed and he'd been kind of stunned at first but judging by the erection that had swelled between them he was completely into it now.

He fell backwards onto the bed wearing far more clothing than she was. He laid back and allowed her free reign; which she had taken for granted anyway. She pushed his shirt up over his head and then abandoned him tangled in the navy blue fabric while she focused her attention on his fly. He had managed to get the shirt off and send it sailing across the room when her hands started on both waistbands.

"Sam, slow down," he said, trying to sit up. She caught his face between her hands and kissed him silent.

Taking some initiative he leveraged up, rolling forward smoothly and pitching her over backwards until she was arched over the end of the bed, with him kneeling between her legs. Apparently pinned she looked up and watched his face as she reached into his open fly and stroked him through soft cotton for a moment and then pulled him free.

He pulled her hand out of the way, kissed her, pressed his body down on her, rubbing against her and Sam moaned into his mouth and made little choked pleading noises.

It was all warm, naked skin from the waist up and soft denim, cotton, hard cock and moist willingness below. They both groaned, and clutched at each other, and writhed up against each other, and thrust, hard, and muscled closer, tighter. Sam was shaking, and her head dropped over the edge of the bed, and Pete kissed her exposed throat, sucked hard the pulse pounding there, kissing and then licking, sucking again, gasping, almost biting, ravenous and half-wild to be with her again, There was a hot electric rush of lust, the familiarity they had now of skin and scent and taste and _life._

She felt his fingers slide between her belly and blue jeans and the calloused pad of his thumb stroking over her at the same moment he brought them together. Sam flung her head back and arched up against him and got lost in the hot wet slide, and then the building rhythmic dance. She thrust up against denim and the metal zipper scraping across her tender skin. Pete thrust down into that soft wet tightness. He felt her first spasms clutching him in waves, and he flew helplessly over the edge, white sparks behind his eyelids and roaring blood in his ears.

The tension snapped a long moment later, and he collapsed on his elbows. Trying to catch his breath, he looked down through a dizzying haze at her re-focusing eyes, her flushed cheeks and her efforts to catch her breath as quietly as possible, and thought it was one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

With supreme effort he put an arm under her shoulders and moved them to collapse across the bed with their feet towards the headboard. He stretched out beside her and held her close.

"Don't go away," he whispered.

Sam had been staring at the ceiling but now she turned her head in confusion.

"Sometimes…." He paused, swallowed, caught his breath some more, "Sometimes, afterwards, it's like you go away somewhere, in your own head. You don't go to sleep. You just lie there in your own head and I don't know where you are."

Sam clenched her teeth. She did do that and she couldn't tell him where it was she went during those times. She made the effort of rolling over and said,

"I'm here now."

"I know," he said, but didn't sound sure.

Sam moved closer, put her head under Pete's chin so he couldn't see her face and said,

"Just hold me?"

"Okay," he tightened his arms. In the pressure of his arms there seemed to be relief as much as anything else.

Sam inhaled and let it out in a slow sigh.

"That's a good sigh, right?" he asked.

"Yeah," she answered.

Pete started kissing her forehead her eyelids.

"Pete," she said, even though she wasn't exactly sure what came next.

"Shh," he said, "I'm here. You're here."

She settled down and tried to make her head shut down.

It took a long time to get the frozen image of O'Neill to stop replaying on the endless feedback loop of her mind.

(0)


	20. Chapter 20

Still dealing with the events of Lost City but moving into New Order now. Again, trying to tell multiple stories and write multiple missing scenes.

The talks about Antarctica had stalled and Daniel suspected it wouldn't be the last time. He was frustrated beyond belief, sick of looking at stone gray walls and missed his fiancé. Jillian had gone home to deal with the minutia of their lives because there was only so much that cleaning services and automatic payment and landscapers could do to keep their normal lives functioning. There was also a wedding date that was fast approaching and he intended to marry her, whether Jack could be there or not.

He took advantage of the gym first and worked out for a while with Teal'c pushing him until he wanted to drop a barbell on the Jaffa's head. Then he showered, changed into denim and a sweater and went to find Sam so that she also knew he was leaving the Base.

He hated leaving them really. The SGC was not a place of happy campers at the moment. All the teams leaders had their backs up about canceled missions, the scientific teams were all angry about the damage to ongoing research and other projects and there was a collective feeling of WTF about civilian oversight.

Jack had met with everyone before they'd left and Daniel felt a sharp pang at the memory of how well he had handled it. Daniel had been slightly shocked by the vehemence in the team leader meeting. He was used to military that followed orders. The men and women who led their off-world teams had crowded into one of the larger VIP rooms and muttered among themselves for a while until Jack – half standing but perched on the edge of one of the round wood tables – had shouted,

"Okay, _out_ with it and consider that an order."

They had practically spoken on top of each other, with Reynolds shocking the hell out of Daniel by demanding why – if it had to be a civilian – wasn't it Dr. Jackson? Frustrated voices had chimed in immediately with support for the idea. Dr. Jackson was better qualified in every conceivable way than this Dr. Weir. If it had to be a civilian why not one they knew, who had been out there and knew what they were up against and would give orders they would follow? They'd have taken orders from Daniel willing, at least they all claimed they would and Daniel had been oddly touched by the overwhelming consensus.

Underneath was an undercurrent of resentment at Hammond being so abruptly transferred out and at a time when Jack himself was unable to assume command and that was also about trust and respect.

Jack had found answers to everything that could be answered. He'd reminded the SG team leaders that their ultimate commander in chief was the President and he'd put Weir in charge and they better not give her any crap. He'd surrendered his command to the next senior Colonel by service time – who just happened to be Gerald Mallory – and spent a few hours bringing Mal up to speed with everything that was going on. Daniel had seen the look that passed between Mallory and Jack after the announcement. It was a fast, sharp, military exchange full of meaning and understanding. This whole situation was fucked up and the next few weeks were going to be hell; not to even mention the chaos once they resumed regular Gate operation.

Jack hadn't told anyone his suspicions about Weir and who had really put her here and what he true purpose was. He'd said nothing out loud at least but his own team had exchanged a long look that held a single word – _Kinsey._

Even with the Ancients rewiring his brain, Jack O'Neill hadn't been anyone's fool. But it was a damned miserable time for him to be checking out, worse professionally than personally and that was saying a lot.

Now the SGC was moving forward as well as it could on stand down and it was largely due to Jack's efficiency in the face of crisis; and Daniel missed him more than he would ever had believed possible. The day he had resisted was here – the day he looked up and Jack was gone. Daniel felt like he was playing chess and suddenly a new player had sat down right in the middle of the end game.

He found Sam in the commissary eating lunch with Pete, who hadn't managed to return to Denver yet for some reason. He'd practically moved in with Sam and now he was back at work with her.

Sam greeted Daniel with a forced smile that faded almost immediately. He only nodded to both of them. They were both exhausted. They wanted to get to Antarctica and were feeling the strain of two race horses being held in the starting gate too long.

"What's going on?" he asked her.

"Pete just told me he applied for a position with the Colorado Springs PD and he got an offer."

Daniel let the moment hang. He hated polite conversation. He hated things that would only come out sounding scripted. He shifted into scientist – a way of existence that was utterly natural to him.

"Is it a good position?" he asked Pete in a voice that was running in neutral. "A good opportunity?"

"It's more of a lateral move," he leaned closer to Sam and put his arm across the back of her chair. "But I think it's completely worth it. I want to be closer to Sam and the commute is just ridiculous. I think she needs someone to take care of her now."

Daniel let his carefully schooled gaze slide over to Sam. At any other time he would have expected her to get her back up and spit like a wet cat at the very idea of needing someone to take care of her. He'd been in the field with her and knew how capable she was.

He got another tight smile from her and then she looked at Pete and smiled in a different way. Daniel studied her with all the intensity he gave a script that had to be translated. He'd seen Sam's sidelong looks at Jack; and Daniel was also madly in love with a woman who for some reason was madly in love with him. He knew how Jillian looked at him.

He knew how a woman looked at man she was head-over-heels-crazy-in-love-with.

This wasn't that look. Daniel sensed that Sam wanted it to be and she was trying to make it be.

When she glanced back at him he hoped his whole expression wasn't screaming _what the hell?_

"Did you need me for something?" she asked.

"Umm, no. I just wanted to let you know I'm going home for a while. I'll leave my phone on."

"Actually, we're leaving too," Sam said, "We're going grocery shopping."

"Grocery shopping," Daniel repeated and wondered how long he could keep all inflection out of his voice.

"Yes," Pete said, brightly, "She's been explaining why we have to buy soy milk instead of dairy."

"It lasts longer," Daniel said, automatically.

"Are you going to check on Jack's house?" Sam asked.

"No, Teal'c's going there and he said he'd stay overnight. His phone is on too."

The silence lingered between them for a moment and then Pete leaned over and gave Sam a quick kiss on the side of her head and stood up.

"I'm going to get dessert. You want something?" he asked.

"No," Sam said, "I'm good."

The truth she wasn't really eating and Daniel was worried about her. When Pete left Daniel speared her with a look.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes, fine," she said.

Daniel tilted his head and took a deep breath.

"Sam, a guy just suggested you need to be taken care and you didn't immediately scratch his eyes out," he pointed out.

"Don't you take care of Jillian?" she asked.

"Not like _that,"_ he said.

"Like what?"

"Not in ways she can damn well take care of herself or she'd scratch my eyes out; and grocery shopping? When did we stop calling Safeway and getting it delivered?"

Sam started to answer but Pete returned and had brought her a cup of blue jello. She smiled gratefully and reached for the spoon. Before Daniel could say another thing, Sam said,

"Say hi to Jillian for me, okay?"

Daniel resisted clenching his teeth. It was an obvious dismissal from the woman who was now his team leader. His CO, though the waters got really muddy sometimes. In the field he was supposed to report to Sam and she reported to Weir. But he reported directly to Weir as a department head. The science department was his and Sam was supposed to bring everything to him first.

With Gate operations suspended, it got even muddier.

And technically it was none of his damned business. It was none of his business who his teammate was dating and it was none of his damn business who his CO was seeing.

But, _holy crap, Sam!_ What are you _doing?_

It was like she had given up, like she had finally chosen between her feelings for Jack and her oath to the Military Code of Justice and she'd had enough of Jack leading her on and disappearing on her and almost getting killed.

"Call me if anything changes," he didn't phrase it as a question, leveling the playing field.

"I will," she answered and if he got one more forced smile out of her he would scream.

He left them sharing a bite of apple pie and ice cream from Pete's fork and walked much too quickly towards the elevator. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than his own house and bright sunshine and clean air and the loving arms of his fiancé.

(0)


	21. Chapter 21

This is another cross post from Sunshine and Shadow, edited for here and making use of my OC from that story line to give a team perspective on Sam and Jack's relationship. Warning: 600+ word Daniel soliloquy ahead.

(0)

Daniel walked into their quarters and inhaled softly. Jillian had jasmine and aloe candles burning to bring some life to the recycled air. There was also a hint of date palm. He had no idea where she got candles that reminded him of the desert, and he suspected they were burning now to help bring him some peace and a sense of calm.

Sometimes he just adored her. When he was with her they were happy. She made him laugh and he had been rather surprised to find that he could make her laugh.

He hadn't really heard her laugh in a few weeks, he realized.

And yet, here, in private, even with all that was going on, there was still a kind of happiness he had never expected to find. In public, Jillian was smart and capable, friendly but respectful enough with all the other men on the Base for them to find her approachable but off limits. In private she seemed to exist only to be with Daniel.

_No one else knows her the way I do_, he thought; and on the heels of that was the thought_, No one else knows me the way she does. Is that what's going on with Sam? Does she know a Pete the rest of us don't see?_

The whole thing made him want to grit his teeth. One moment it had been crystal clear to him that Sam was in love with Jack, fighting for his life, sobbing in Daniel's lap when they'd put Jack in the chamber, crying into Teal'c's shoulder again when they left him under the ice.

Then they were back here and Sam had done a one-eighty that left Daniel's head spinning. Suddenly she had dialed everything up with Pete.

He resisted a sigh and dragged himself back into the moment. Jillian was looking at him expectantly from those wide forest green eyes he adored.

She was cross legged on the bed in a white tank top and grey sweat pants, barefoot, with her laptop open in front of her and a pencil in her hand. She looked up, smiled at him a little uncertainly.

"Something's happened," she said.

He held up his hand to signal that she should take a breath. He knew the speed at which her mind could work.

"I want to tell you first that I'm not going," he said.

It was all the information she needed to immediately rush through the scientific method and come to a conclusion.

"Sam got permission to take the scout ship to contact the Asgard," she said, "and you're not going because you won't leave Jack."

He smiled a little. "How did you know?"

"You didn't leave Jack the first time this happened. You won't leave him now," she said.

He nodded and then went to sit beside her on the bed.

"Well, yeah, and Sam kind of ordered me to stay," he said, sliding closer and looking at her computer screen. "Is that the lexicon for the language on 202?"

"Yes," she answered with forced cheerfulness.

"Is it done?" he had taken over the mouse to scroll through the various sections.

"All but the phraseology collocations," she answered, "It's so close to Gaelic it wasn't really a problem for me. It's just been getting to it, and it's not like we're going anywhere now. I thought I'd take advantage of the downtime and get caught up."

Daniel looked at her. "I'm sorry," he said, as something dawned on him, "I haven't been a very effective department head during all of this have I? I haven't really told anyone what they're supposed to be doing."

Jillian shrugged, "They're used to you being gone or needed elsewhere. They know what to do and if they've had questions they've come to me. That's how you set it up and it's been working. Daniel, you need to concentrate on Jack; not the Gaelic collocations of 202."

Daniel looked at her for a moment. Jillian was more than his fiancé; more than his future wife. She was truly his partner in every aspect of his life.

He wanted that for Sam. How could she ever get that with someone like Pete?

Jillian looked at him sideways. "Did I hear you say Sam _ordered_ you to stay here?"

He kept his eyes focused on the laptop screen, but she saw the crease around his eyes and the way his mouth thinned. His jaw jumped a little when he clenched his teeth and she saw that now too.

Jillian almost sighed. Only Daniel would get angry about being ordered to do something he was going to do anyway.

"She's in command of the team now," he said, short, flat syllables strung together as if he had rehearsed them.

She couldn't stop the derisive little noise as it forced its way into being.

"Daniel, team or not, no one's ever been in command of you."

"Hammond was and now Weir is. The fact is that Sam only argued for her and Teal'c to go."

"And she's right," Jillian said, "She's been training for these types of decisions for most of her life, Daniel. There is nothing you can do on the scout ship, or when you get there."

"I know," he said, shortly.

"So what's wrong?"

"I'm not sure, but it's almost like she doesn't want me around suddenly, like she's been avoiding me."

"Sam?" Jillian asked. There was no mistaking the surprise in her voice. "There isn't a team in this building that's got a stronger bond than yours, not even mine."

"Something's changed," Daniel answered.

Jillian reached over and closed the laptop, pulling it away from him.

"Talk to me," she demanded.

"You and Sam have become very close in the last few years. Don't you think she's acting a little strange?"

"I think she's under a tremendous strain and dealing with a lot that is out of her hands."

Daniel paused and looked around the room. He knew Jack was insane about sweeping their rooms for surveillance. It had been the first thing they'd done last Monday morning and Jack had drilled him to make sure he knew how to do it. They had still been suspicious of Weir then. Daniel wasn't sure they still weren't suspicious of Weir, even with Kinsey supposedly out of the picture.

He knew the room was clean. He and Jillian had swept it that morning.

"She's in love with Jack," he said, "and he's in love with her."

Jillian inhaled sharply. "Jesus, Daniel."

He went on, rapid fire, as if she hadn't spoken, pulling statements from the vast storehouse of his photographic memory,

"They have been almost from the beginning and for a long time I thought they were just using the frat regs as an excuse so I pulled out the military code of justice and found them. Actually I did that twice because when I was trying to get my memories back I had forgotten everything I read before and then I started being aware that was something was going on with them and I didn't remember it until I started reading them again. The Air Force defines fraternization as a relationship between officers and enlisted personnel, which I guess is how Jack gets around spending so much time with all of us. None of us are enlisted. Hell, Teal'c and I aren't even military. Then there's all this bizarre language about a relationship between officers and their immediate superiors, which of course Jack is her immediate supervisor but even then there didn't seem to be a problem unless the relationship becomes 'unprofessional'. There's a whole long cautionary statement about 'the possibility that relationships that are not initially unprofessional may become so due to changed circumstances' like Sam and Jack are suddenly going to start throwing china at each other in the middle of a fire fight with the Goa'uld or something. There's also a clause about how Air Force officers are expected to avoid those relationships that negatively affect morale, discipline, respect for authority and unit cohesion. So instead we've had this underlying tension for seven years and sometimes Sam is miserable and sometimes Jack is miserable and how has that not negatively affecting us as a unit? That time on 8596 when he went off with Kynthia. I knew what he was going to do and Sam knew it too and I _know _Teal'c did and we all just let him go have unprotected sex and then it was even worse because it was unprotected sex under an alien influence and if he had been in a secure positive relationship with Sam, or even thought he could have one, I don't think that would have ever happened. _She_ would have stopped him. She would have _known_ something was up. Instead we let a bunch of people holding _flowers_ stop us from stopping him.

"I mean, _jesus_, there's even a long section about not letting friendship negatively affect morale. How are we supposed to have not become friends out there? And…and… and they let us still be friends. We're always together. We're always with your team when we're not with mine.

"So as I'm reading through this code of military conduct and just getting madder and madder because I can't understand why Sam and Jack have been acting like lunatics for seven years and then I found it. 'The formation of such relationships between superiors and subordinates within the same chain of command or supervision is prohibited because such relationships invariably raise the perception of favoritism or misuse of position and erode morale, discipline and unit cohesion.' Prohibited, not discouraged, just flat prohibited. Forbidden and…and…and they swore an _oath_ to this and they're both just so fucking military. I mean look at Sam. She's a military brat. She grew up on Bases and she takes it very seriously. It's not just in her background, it's in her DNA. She'd die before she'd dishonor the military tradition or her family. How could she ever face her father again if she got court martialed for having a relationship with her commanding officer?

"And Jack… _god_ Jack lost everything and all he had left was the military and no one knows that better than I do. So I know they couldn't…they _can't_ do anything and I know they won't do anything and I know we're going to get Jack out of Antarctica and then we're going to just keep pretending that they don't love each other and Sam's going to settle for Pete and she knows I know that.

I mean, Pete's a nice guy Jill, really. He's fun at karaoke night though he's also kind of likely to wind up being the one with the lampshade on his head. But I just for the life of me can't figure out how he keeps someone like Sam engaged. You just sat here and talked to me about Gaelic phraseology collocations. Do you think _Pete_ talks to Sam about cosmic microwave backgrounds; or whatever it was she was going on about a few weeks ago?

"And, Jill, I just don't know what to do about it. I'm not sure it's even up to me, or if I should try to do something or if that will just make it worse. I…I love them both, and I…."

He stopped on a long, hard sigh, looking at his hands. When he finally focused on Jillian again she was staring at him with her lips slightly parted and her eyes were wide. After a brief, silent moment she scooted closer to him, put her arms around his shoulders and her forehead on his upper arm.

"It hurts you," she said, gently. "You're scared this won't end well for them, even with Kinsey out of the way. Wow, no wonder Jack has been so insane about surveillance. You don't think they ever… that she and Jack ever…"

"Jillian!" Daniel cried, sounding pained. "I'm not going there."

"Okay. I'm sorry," she kissed his arm through the fabric of his t-shirt. "I love them too."

He turned his head so that it was resting on hers for a moment, covered her hand with his.

"I know. I just want them to have a chance. I want them to have what we have, you know?"

Jillian nodded. "I do." She kissed his arm again. "I do, baby, really. But I think you need to stay out of this and let them work it out."

"Have you seen Sam with Pete lately?" he asked, rhetorically. He knew she had.

"It's her life, Daniel. You can't live it for her. She seems happy," Jillian answered.

"Maybe she's just lived with tragedy and chaos for so long that she can't process what happiness really is anymore," Daniel observed.

""Or maybe the inherently ephemeral nature of happiness is tragedy in itself, and the happier we are, the sadder it really is, because everything ends," Jillian said.

Daniel blinked at her. "I think I just remembered why I don't discuss philosophy with you."

"You want Sam and Jack to have what we have," she guessed, "Even if it can only be for now, the way we have it."

"I want them to be happy," he said, a little helplessly.

"Getting court martialed for an illegal affair is unlikely to make either of them happy, Daniel," Jillian pointed out, "Neither is being forced to resign or retire."

He held her, rested his chin on the top of her head.

"This sucks," Daniel said finally and she couldn't help but smile a little. Her bright, articulate, multi-lingual wonderful fiancé was sometimes completely eloquent with only two words.

"I know," she said.

"It's not fair."

"I know."

"It's such a breakthrough for Jack. He was so shut down and now…. Now he can maybe fall in love again…"

"I know."

"Why can't they just say 'fuck the fate of the world' and give in?"

She twisted her head and looked at him. She wanted to ask if he would, for her, but she knew the answer was no and it would kill him to say it and kill him to lie.

So she said, "You know why," and dared him to make the conclusion on his own.

She saw the truth in his haunted eyes, the frown on his forehead. The denial he wanted to make died unsaid. He pulled her close again and stroked her hair.

"I do love you, Jill," he said, softly.

"I know you do," she answered.

(0)


	22. Chapter 22

A/N still tagging New Order part 2

(0)

_He'd always had, or so Daniel insisted, the potential for Ascension. Daniel had thought he'd had that potential even in human form, all the genetic ability in the world passed down to him through the Ancients._

_Daniel didn't know some of the things Jack had done. Daniel would never know if Jack could help it. He had refused the privilege, unable to release the burden of his sins. Now he had the knowledge and could, from the expanded viewpoint of that knowledge, find a way to Ascend if he wanted._

_But he doesn't want; and he never will. He's been clinging to life for too long against too many odds and there are too many things left undone. He'd like to be safe but safety is an illusion. He's learned not to trust it. So he clung to the memory of life and even of danger and he clung to the memory of her so he wouldn't drift loose and be lost to the winds of the void he inhabited._

_One of those things is floating in front of him and behind him at the same time. There's his future in front of himand his past behind him and both of those are made up entirely of Sam._

_The one in front of him is facing towards him. Her eyes are locked with his and her expression is sad but full of love. She's wearing a blue sun dress that leaves her arms and shoulders bare and sandals and her long lovely legs are bare also and she's so impossibly stunning and so altogether impossible. It hasn't happened yet, but might be happening even as he floated in this strange place that isn't life and isn't death and isn't Ascension. He can't reach for her even though he wants to. That Sam doesn't exist and never has and probably never can. _

_He wants to reach for her. It's all he's wanted to do for years. But there are shackles on the hands he wants to raise to touch her face and pull her close; on the hands he wants to rest on her slim hips as he kisses her. The shackles are a dragging weight on his arms, and he knows he can't break them._

_When he looks down he finds his wrists gripped in the talons of a silver eagle, a wheat sheaf over his right wrist and a group of arrows over his left. The eagle claws are digging in hard enough to draw blood._

_He wanted to promise her he would be there for her forever and he couldn't. He had already given that promise to someone else, something else and he'd learned the hard way that promise couldn't be given to two different people._

_He looks at her and feels desperate and she lifts her hands from the hidden folds of her skirt she's wearing the same shackles._

_The Sam behind him is different – young and earnest, stubborn and beautiful, wearing off-world combat gear, holding her P90 with all that glorious hair hidden under an Air Force cap. She's got his back. She's always had his back. The past surrounds him on waves of memory, of pain and heartbreak and love and desire._

_Neither his past nor his future move. There is only him, suspended forever between them. His present is now eternal, with the past haunting him and the future forever out of his reach._

_The Sam he's always had guarding him against the Sam he can never have._

"_Sam," he says into the ether. "Sam."_

_His voice is weak, a distant shadow of what he wants the word to say, what he wants the word to mean._

_Then it all started to dissolve and he was losing both of them and for a moment he was terrified…._

And then the world solidified and his head was throbbing like thunder and the light was too bright and he lifted his hand to block it out.

"Oy," he said, "What a headache."

Daniel's voice, soothing, relieved. "Take it easy. You've been through a lot."

He lowered his hand, sought Daniel and realized he was on an Asgard ship.

Well that explained a lot. He sat up with Daniel's help.

Bad idea. _Really _bad idea and he hoped someone had shot the mule that had kicked him in the head.

"What now," he asked, irritably.

"Um," Daniel began as if he really had no idea where to start," what's the last thing you remember?"

"Getting my head sucked…." Wow _that_ came out sounding wrong. He clarified, " by one of those damned Ancient head-suckers" He paused and fought the image of something else, two women, blond….. Sam? "And something about twins." Desperate to stop that line of questioning before inquisitive, doggedly determined Daniel jumped all over it, he deflected it quickly.

"Teal'c," he said, "What's with the hair?"

(0


	23. Chapter 23

The moment Jack had opened his eyes Daniel had felt his lung capacity increase exponentially. First it had expanded when he saw Teal'c. In spite of the casually offhand 'Hey guys" his relief at seeing Teal'c had been enough to make his knees watery and his head spin a little and he'd fought down both responses because it was just plain unmanly to faint in front of a Jaffa.

The news about Sam had hit him hard and the space in his heart that belonged to her was still resisting it. This wasn't over and he wasn't ready to believe it.

Then Jack was also up and moving and talking and being normal, snarky Jack and he felt as if he'd taken his first breath after weeks in a vacuum.

Then they found Sam and Daniel managed to focus his vision and control his pounding heart long enough to watch them carefully and he saw Sam and Jack looking at each other as if there was no one else in the whole world. Sam didn't look even remotely surprised, as if she'd always known he would be back because he was the only sure and certain thing in her world; and Jack was looking at her like she was the only star left in the sky.

At that point, maybe it was exhaustion and maybe it was rage and maybe it just a need to get at the truth because he'd devoted his life to it, but Daniel had had it. Standing there still riding an adrenaline high, with the blood singing in his ears and relieve making his heart throb.

He couldn't say anything right now. He'd just gotten them back and the odds were good that Jack would knock him on his ass if he started talking about It now.

With an effort Daniel swallowed the words and the feelings and decided to just be grateful for a moment. None of them were dead. Not dead always made it a very good day.

But he had things he wanted to speak to Thor about and now he had something very, very important to talk to Sam about; and nothing was going to stop him.

(0)

He cornered her later in the small room filled with banks of technology that served as the beating heart of _The Daniel Jackson_. It seemed fitting somehow and he was utterly certain an Asgard ship wasn't being bugged by Kinsey or the NID. She had a panel open and was looking over it with the intense concentration of the true scientist. She gave him a shy flash of smile and a soft,

"Hi, Daniel."

"Hey, Sam. Can we talk?"

"About what?" she asked with most of her concentration still on trying to make sense of Asgard magic.

"You and Jack," Daniel said bluntly.

Sam froze. She turned slowly, tensed for flight or fight. Daniel was between her and the door.

Her smile became beautiful and kind of terrible all at the same time. A wiser man would run from a woman whose mood had just changed that abruptly. But he had never been that man.

"So you want to Talk About It," she said, emphasizing the last four words.

"Yes," Daniel answered. "Don't you think we finally should?"

"Obviously you do," she fired back, "and I know you. Short of this ship exploding into a billion microscopic bits nothing is going to stop you. I'm just surprised it's you."

"Why?"

"No one hates people prying into his private life more than you do, Daniel."

That was true and he knew it. He had kept silent for all this time for that very reason. That silence lingered between them for a little bit longer and then she said,

"So. Talk."

She was still seated. He was standing and he was in that mode his team found the most irritating – determined to get the pain part of the discussion out in the open and over with as soon as possible. He sat down so he didn't seem so threatening.

"I can't change the way things are, Daniel," Sam began.

"You love him. Jack," Daniel stated.

"Does it matter?"

He didn't miss the fact that she hadn't answered him.

"Why wouldn't it?"

Sam ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, wondering if two scientists could have a talk like this without it just being a series of questions. When she didn't answer Daniel pressed his advantage, though his voice hadn't risen above its quietest tone.

"You've both been waiting," he guessed, "waiting for the world to not need you so much and now, right _now,_ things look better than they ever have. The Goa'uld are in chaos. Anubis is gone. Look what we just did to the Replicators! Isn't this what you've been waiting for? Once all of this is wrapped up…"

"Don't." It was so quiet and so lost and so lonely that it pulled Daniel up short.

"Don't?"

"Do this," Sam said and made a vague unhappy gesture with her hand into the air, "Don't try to make me think that I'm more important to him than the military. I know it isn't true. Not right now and maybe not ever. You're creating a fantasy, Daniel, in which the world is suddenly all safe and secure and we can stroll off into the sunset together because that's what you and Jillian are going to do and that's just not possible for me and Jack."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't look you in the face and tell you that he's more important to me than the military! Not right now! I know I could resign my commission and probably stay on with the program. I could make a life's work out of a half a dozen things we've discovered. I wouldn't mind not getting shot at so much but I just don't see it happening, Daniel."

"Why not?" Daniel repeated in that infuriating way.

"Because it's the most logical progression in the world!" She said, voice rising, "Jack gets the program. I doubt this civilian thing will last very long. General Hammond is working on the President and I know he can make him see that you don't take military command away in the middle of a war. This isn't the time to be running the SGC like a corporation. At best Jack _and you_ get the program and I'm _not_ going to be the one who gets in his way. The military is his life and if he retires then what? He goes fishing every day and the SGC loses the best possible person in the world? He sits around waiting for me to get home? We'd kill each other after three months. I won't let him do that, not for me; and if things go the way I think they will, I get SG1 and I'm not ready to give that up. _He _won't want me to do that. Do you think he wants to send you and Teal'c out there with just anyone? Do you think I want that?"

"No, "Daniel admitted. "But we don't want to be what keeps you and Jack apart either."

"You're not, Daniel. Don't take that burden when it doesn't exist. It's just us, Jack and me. Jack is what he _is_. He is what we _do_; and so am I. Outside of work, I want…. I think I just want…."

Sam trailed off, searching for a word and Daniel sighed in something like defeat,

"Normal," he said. How many times had Jillian asked him for that? Begged him for it even if it could only be for a few hours?

"Yes," Sam said, gratefully. She should have known Daniel would find the right word. "It's kind of nice to go home to someone who doesn't really know, who doesn't really ask, whose just fun."

He studied her carefully. Usually everything Sam thought and felt appeared on her face at some point. She was clearly keeping a tight lid on things at the moment.

"So you're okay with the way things are?" he asked in a slow, utterly neutral voice, trying not to be confrontational.

"Yes," she said and her eyes slid away from his.

"Sam," Daniel made the word a challenge.

She looked back. "We can't change anything right now, Daniel. But there is something I've been thinking about…"

"What?"

"Do you ever think about Jack's clone?"

The question briefly derailed his entire thought process. _What?_

"Not recently," Daniel admitted, "Things have been a little hectic lately. But yeah, I think about him a lot, alone out there."

"Me too," Sam said, "So I… I'm going to ask Thor to recreate Loki's cloning techniques, on me, so that I can go be with him."

Daniel's jaw literally dropped. "You…you'd be willing to do that?"

"I just said so," she answered. "In an ideal world it would be all of us. But Teal'c doesn't ever leave the mountain in his original form and there's the whole complication of either a symbiote or a supply of tretonin and he'd never agree to it just on those grounds; and you, well I don't know how Jillian would feel about that and you – or you 2.0 – would have to be willing to give her up and I already know the answer to that."

"She's my whole life, Sam," Daniel said, "Jack would never ask even a copy of me to do that. Besides there's something I want to ask Thor for, and Heimdahl too and I wasn't sure but," he paused and made a general gesture around him, "They seem to have named a ship after me so now I'm feeling a little more confident."

Sam looked incredibly puzzled. "What are you going to ask?"

Daniel told her and Sam looked stunned.

"Jillian will….. she'll be…." Sam stammered.

Daniel grinned a little. "Yeah, I know. But don't say anything to her okay? I don't even know if it's possible. I haven't asked, and now we want to ask Thor about this cloning thing."

"We?" Sam said.

"I'll back you. I hate that he's out there alone and I never got the feeling Thor was happy about it either," Daniel said, "and you're right. It seems Fate or Chance has given you and Jack a bizarre means to be together, without all the baggage of the last seven years. What about Jack? _Our _Jack."

"What about him?" Sam asked.

"Shouldn't he know?" Daniel asked.

"No, for his own protection," Sam said and cut him off as he drew a long breath to argue with her, "We're taking an enormous security risk, Daniel. If anyone finds out I'll be in a huge amount of trouble, way more than you. I took a chance even telling you and I'm starting to feel a little guilty about involving you in this now. But Jack will say no. This way we can just do it and ask forgiveness if it comes to that."

"Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?" Daniel said.

"Yep."

He studied her for a long time. "What about Sam 1.0? Pete's a great guy, Sam but… does he really challenge you the way you need to be?"

"Don't project, Daniel," Sam said, "I know you love how Jillian will argue with you about artifacts and hypothesis, how she's not even a little bit intimidated by how brilliant you are. It doesn't mean that's what I'm looking for. We don't laugh under the mountain. Pete makes me laugh. Pete isn't under any misguided impression that he isn't good enough for me."

It was too close to what he had been thinking just recently; and what she had just said was true. Jack _did _think he wasn't good enough for Sam. But still….

"You can't build a relationship just watching Comedy Central, Sam," he said.

"You can't build one constantly being at work, either; and I'm not interested in being put on a pedestal," she answered.

"When you see me with Jillian can you tell I'm happy?"

"Yes, you adore each other," Sam answered.

"I can't tell that with you and Pete."

"We've only been together a few months!" Sam protested and he could tell she was running out of patience with the conversation and ready to end it. "Look, Daniel. Jack has been pulling away from me for months. It started when you…."

"Died," he guessed but she said, "Ascended," in nearly the same breath. She smiled a little.

"I know you think we– Jack and I – have been waiting, but we're not. It's always been impossible and we've always known it. Daniel, I love you for being worried. But let me do this and see how it goes?"

_Normal. _He couldn't stop the word from rolling around in his head, couldn't stop the echo of Jillian's voice pleading for the same thing. If Pete was wrong for Sam, and Daniel believed that on every possible level he was, then Sam was smart enough to figure it out.

Sam stood up. "We're not far from Earth now. We should go talk to Thor if we're going to have time."

Daniel stood up too.

"Okay, Sam," he said and there was a wealth of meaning in that very simple phrase.

(0)


	24. Chapter 24

The Asgard beam put them down without warning or announcement right in the middle of the Gate Room. There was a brief moment filled with the sound of weapons being aimed and the movement of marines into combat stance and Jack holding up his hands and saying,

"Whoa! Whoa! Easy there, fellas. Stand down."

Dr. Weir appeared at the window, took one look and vanished as she turned to come down to them. An instant later, amidst some very unprofessional cheering from the assembled Gate techs and marines, she appeared in the Gate Room.

"Welcome back," she said first to Jack and then with welcoming smiles to the rest of SG1.

She got a faint smile from Sam, a brief inclination of his head from Teal'c with no change in his basic expression or the degree of warmth in his eyes and that same shrewd measuring look from O'Neill that was no different than the first one he had given her.

She'd tried to take a less dominant position, offer a little bit of humility… "I know I'm playing catch up…." And O'Neill had cut her off at the knees impatiently and with a smug backhanded reference to science, "Actually it's all relative, ma'am…."

He was still the man who had stared down the Vice President of the United States as if he was a cockroach. He was still the man who had leaned forward across the length of a table, stared her in the eye and demanded to know who she was, really, even while the Ancients had been rewiring his memories.

Even with her clearance, Elizabeth Weir had been shocked by the number of times Jack O'Neill's file had been redacted.

The only one who seemed unaware of her greeting was Dr. Jackson. He was hurriedly stripping out of everything that wasn't supposed to leave the Gate Room.

"The Goa'uld?" he asked.

"Gone," she answered, "We let them go."

Daniel eyed her for a moment. There was a story in that but he'd wait for the debrief.

"Is Jillian here?"

"I believe she is, yes. If she left, no one told me."

Daniel was moving while Elizabeth was still talking. He found the phone on the wall and dialed Jillian's cell.

"Where are you?" he said into it after a moment, "Yeah, it's me!... Yes, I'm back and in one piece…Stay there? Okay, see you in a sec."

He hung up and turned around. "When are we debriefing?"

Daniel was acting like he was standing on hot coals.

"I think considering what you've all been through that it can wait until the morning," Elizabeth said.

It was all he needed to hear. Daniel bolted out the door.

Weir looked blankly after him for a moment and then glanced at O'Neill.

"He's got a hot date," Jack said, mildly.

(0)

She was waiting in the hall outside the office door but met him halfway the moment he came around the corner.

He was glowing, laughing, as if a light had come on in his soul and driven away all the darkness. He wrapped her in both arm, crushing her ribs as he lifted her off her feet and swung her around and buried his face in her hair.

"Oh god, Jillian, _oh god_," he said.

He set her back down and she looked up to find his expression still suffused with joy. His smile was so wide she had to smile with him and then finally laughed even if she didn't know why.

"What happened?" she asked, breathless, wriggling a little because it was starting to be hard to inhale.

He relaxed a little but didn't let go.

"So much," he said, nuzzling into her hair. "So much I don't know where to start."

"Are you drunk?" she asked.

Another burst of breathless, deep, male laughter slipped up from his chest. His joy settled over her like a net of stardust.

"Daniel," she said, still caught up in his boisterous good mood. "Come in the office and tell me."

"No I want to go home, "he said. "I can tell you on the way."

"Jack?"

"He's fine."

She felt tears of relief prick at her eyes in spite of the joy.

"Asgard?"

"Also fine."

"Both vehicles are here," she cautioned.

"Pick one, I don't care," he said. He was all but bouncing on his heels with exuberance, "We can leave the Jeep here. It will be safe."

"Okay. Let me get my stuff," she was still looking at him as if she was worried he'd suffered a head injury or was drugged or something.

He grinned back at her and she couldn't stop from smiling back again. He was radiating happiness at the moment. He swept her into another hug and then said, "Okay, go but be quick."

(0)

It was a cold night, with autumn getting ready to slip into winter and Thanksgiving right around the corner. Over the last few months Jillian had designed and worked with contractors to create a sun room in the former patio below the deck. It hadn't been a space either of them used very much and she turned it into a room they now sought in the evenings when they were home.

It didn't hurt, Daniel decided, that she had designed it as a desert oasis. There was a fireplace in the middle of the long wall, the first thing anyone saw entering the room, made of something like adobe with a natural wood mantle. The long glass windows were separated by curtains that looked like tent fabric, which were currently pulled back to reveal the shadows on their lawn getting longer and the sky filling with sunset shades. The concrete floor had been stained a rich, sandy color and was covered in scattered reed mats. The colors were soft desert shades of tan and gold and orange and green, with splashes of yellow and the occasional blue. She had moved all his potted palms and other desert plants down here and to Daniel they seemed a little happier.

He started a fire, sank into a wooden lounge chair covered in comfortable red cushions and sighed a little. Jillian was pouring a sparkling white wine from England into two wine glasses. She put it back in the ice bucket on the table between the chairs and handed one glass to him before sitting down. Daniel swirled it for a moment and then swallowed a little.

Okay, that was actually pretty good.

He sipped the wine and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He gave her sidelong look of deep appreciation. She had changed into a pair of stretch jeans and a hot pink cable-knit turtle neck sweater. The sweater seemed to have no real shape of its own and simply clung to hers.

He'd changed into a cotton turtle neck, chinos and the oatmeal colored sweater he knew she loved. It was one of the things still in his dresser drawers. One of the few things she had unpacked. He suspected she had worn it a few times during his Ascension.

Her voice was very soft.

"We don't have to talk if you don't want to. You look pretty content."

"No, I won't sleep if I don't tell you everything, not even with a couple of glasses of this," he lifted the wine glass slightly. "This is excellent, Jill."

She smiled at him. He'd taken his glasses off and somehow managed to look more boyish and more rugged all at the same time.

"I am kind of curious what caused all the joy, besides Jack being restored to us of course."

"Well there is one kind of bleak series of incidents in this. Sam went through hell."

"You don't have to tell me about that," she said, "Sam will tell me if she wants."

"Sam is going to have to report this at the debriefing and then write it in an official report. She's not going to want to rehash it again, at least not for a long long time. She said I could tell you. I think it would be a relief to her that you know because then she can talk to you about it later without having to relive it. Of course I only know what she told me."

Jillian stared across at the fire for a little bit, balancing her wine glass in her palm and moving her fingers up and down the stem. Whatever Daniel had been told it was weighing on him.

"Is she going to be okay?" she asked finally.

"Yeah," Daniel said, absently and then he told her in a flat tone with gradually increasing speed but no excitement what Sam had told him Fifth had inflicted on her.

When he was finished he drank the rest of his wine, refilled the glass and then sat back and regarded her, watching for her reaction.

"Fifth got into Sam's head and created a farm with cows and pigs and thought she would want to stay there with him forever?" she summarized.

"Yes," Daniel verified, still looking grim.

"Wow," Jillian breathed, looking awed. "She's amazing. I mean you're amazing but the two of you just take my breath away sometimes."

"Why?" Daniel asked, puzzled.

"Daniel, think for a moment," she said, "Sam on a farm? In the middle of nothing and nowhere? With cows and pigs? I'm thinking she's out of her mind with boredom by day three, packing up Toto, leaving Auntie Em an evil note and running away."

He laughed a little, swirled the wine around in his glass again and said, "Well, yeah, but how does that make her amazing?"

"Because Fifth was in her head and this is what she made him believe she wanted more than anything, so she'd know if he was trying to trick her with illusions. That kind of mental control under those circumstances? That isn't something she could have learned with any kind of military training. That's just Sam digging down deep and keeping an enemy from knowing what is really in her head. Daniel, I'm not sure where this thing with Pete is going but I know she doesn't want to live on a farm with him forever and ever. "

"No, I'm pretty sure that's not what she wants," Daniel mused.

He was staring into the fire and there was an undercurrent to his words that Jillian caught immediately.

"What does she want, do you think?" she asked quietly.

"Things she doesn't think she can have, "Daniel answered. He put his wine glass down and leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him and turning towards her a little bit, "I talked to her about Jack, about her and Jack."

Jillian inhaled sharply. "Shén me niǎo," she said, "Hadn't she been through enough?"

"Yeah," Daniel drew the word out long and full of regret, "But I didn't think about what you just said – that it was probably just a smoke screen to put Fifth off the scent of what she really wants. I had just finished listening to her tell me about this fantasy of living an idyllic existence with Pete. I was beyond frustrated with her even though I was so – _so_ – relieved to have her back safely. So I confronted her about her feelings for Jack."

Jillian regarded him with some concern. "And she's still speaking to you?"

"Yes," a smile pulled the corners of his mouth.

"Did you make any progress?"

"We came to an understanding."

"And that is?"

"I mind my own business?"

"And this thing with Pete?"

Daniel shrugged. "We support it until it falls apart."

"And if it doesn't?"

"It will."

He sounded certain and looked a little grim. Then he sat back again and spoke slowly. "I need to tell you something she and I did. But I also need to swear you to secrecy."

"For you and Sam," she shrugged, "Of course."

He lowered his chin and looked up from under his lashes. It was his intense look, one he had on speed dial.

"It's serious, Jill."

"All right," she acknowledged.

He leaned forward again and began to tell her.

(0)

Shén me niǎo – WTF in a northern Mandarin dialect.


	25. Chapter 25

This chapter will end the Lost City/New Order story arc. It was inspired by the Sanctuary episode in which Amanda Tapping sings and all the Saturdays my (grown up) kids have dragged me to karaoke night. It also includes more of my original characters - the members of SG8, Col Gerald Mallory, Captain Scotty Lawrence and Major Rusty Davidson. It also features Scotty's girlfriend Annie. This chapter is a part of Sunshine and Shadow and was not edited for Moonlight and Steel, but I felt it was need to wrap up the last few chapters. Moonlight and Steel will now return to its regularly scheduled Sam-whump. ;-)

(0)

Daniel appeared in the doorway of the science lab and entered with all the subtlety of a dust devil. He walked straight to the table across from Sam, leaned over, resting on his elbows, clasped his hands in front of him and said,

"So how you doing with all this?"

"All what?" Sam asked, but she wasn't doing a good job at all of hiding the fact that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

Daniel gave her a penetrating look that said clearly he wasn't going to let her get away with it.

"Jack taking command, you getting SG1…."

"Why wouldn't I be doing just fine with it?" Sam asked, "It's what I said was going to happen. It's what I've been working for all my adult life." She leaned towards him. "I pretty much have everything I want right now, don't I?"

"Do you?" he shot back.

"Daniel." It was short, flat, filled with impatience.

"What about Jack?" he asked.

Sam flashed him a look that should have burned him to ash on the spot.

"Here? Really?"

"The cameras don't have sound. We're just chatting. What about being with Jack?"

"I _am_ with Jack, in a way."

"As sophomores at Mountain Springs High School in Denver!" Daniel protested.

"SHHHH!" Sam hissed. "You're going to give me a heart attack."

"Sam," Daniel said, "I know that you're more of a hard scientist than I am. I know you deal more in what's real and factual and can be proven and all this might seem logical to you, but is this really something you can quantify? It's not like you can run a simulation of how this might work out."

"Daniel…."

"I just want to make sure you're okay, Sam," he said quickly, "We've been in 'no way out' situations that we got out of hundreds of times. I just want to make sure that's not how you're treating this."

"This?" She said, "And I swear to god Daniel if you say Pete, I'll throttle you."

Daniel clamped his mouth shut abruptly and she glared at him. It took her a moment to assess the situation. Daniel was starting to sound a little too much like her brother, who had never supported anything she wanted to do and he had _never _been that kind of brother-figure to her before.

But temper never helped and Daniel wasn't coming from wanting control over her. Daniel did everything from a basis of love. They were part of a team and Daniel had always been the one who helped them get their feelings and thoughts and ideas into the open – picking at Jack until he defused with sarcasm, challenging Teal'c into smiles and soft looks that had been foreign to him seven years ago and giving her the courage to voice her opinions and ideas in spite of her military training.

And Daniel was right in a way. She was working from a checklist, the way she always did. She was assessing risks and probabilities, extrapolating about what would come next from what had come before. Simple calculations, projections of vectors, the beauty of math and science that had been her life since her mother's death had sent her in a frantic search for carefully ordered rules.

Her career had recently taught her how wrong the laws of physics could actually be and how much time she'd spent on them. Maybe she just wanted to free fall for a while.

"I thought we agreed you were going to let me make my own choices and do things the way I want?" she asked, finally.

"I don't remember signing anything," he said, with an innocent smile that only made her want to throttle him more.

"I'll get you a pen," she kept from snapping it by the skin of her teeth. An old reflex made her take a long, deep, cleansing breathe.

She leveled an expression at him that she hoped said _I really love you Daniel but knock it off. Now._

He got the message. The man was not an idiot afterall.

"So, you coming tonight?" he asked.

"To O'Malley's?"

"Yes."

Sam shrugged. "It's first Thursday, so yeah, why wouldn't I? The place is going to be packed though. It sounds like everyone is going to be there."

Daniel nodded. "Everyone wants to get out from under the mountain and celebrate the victory over Anubis."

"You going to be there?"

"For a little while, yes. Jill wants to go."

"You used to hate these things, Daniel," Sam pointed out, "Too much noise, too much military."

It was his turn to shrug and even to grin in a kind of silly way. "People change."

"Yes," Sam said, pointedly, "We do."

(0)

O'Malley's on Friday and Saturday night was always packed. Sunday through Wednesday it was mostly a family crowd. Thursdays had always notably been the quietest day of the week.

Until the SGC personnel had discovered the emptiness of Thursday night and begun the tradition of 'First Thursday'. Now on the first Thursday of every month O'Malley's was packed, so full of people they had to open the banquet rooms. Karoake started early and last until the place closed. The pool tables were never emptied and the kitchen often ran out of food.

In the beginning, in the waning days of that first year when this tradition had started, Daniel had been very uncomfortable. Teal'c had managed to avoid even going for years and Daniel had always had an excuse ready so that he could duck out after an hour and half a bottle of beer.

At first it had just been odd to see them all outside of the gray walls and military protocol, to see them in jeans and regular shoes and laughing and ripping each other in ways that were sometimes ribald and sometimes rode the edge of downright dirty.

Daniel had never been part of a group, not even on dig sites. He'd had no idea how to process the experience except from the outlook of the anthropologist, which had made him feel even more separate. It was more than seeing them out of uniform and trying to remember their names without the convenient labels. It was seeing them with their normal lives and regular personalities, without military constraint.

As if military hadn't been enough of a barrier in the beginning, as if 'civilian' wasn't often uttered as a something contemptible, Daniel had been forced to witness the body language of camaraderie and a bond of closeness, even of a kind of intimacy that he had never had. There had always been a sense of wrongness that left him feeling even more like a transplant from another world.

It had taken him years to get over it and finally begin to feel welcome and a part of the group as a whole. It had taken more than a year for someone to greet him by name and offer him a drink or challenge him to pool. Now he didn't mind arriving a little early, even if Jack wasn't there ahead of him, standing at the bar telling war stories surrounded by a group of guys well into their second pitcher of beer. He'd envied Jack his swagger, his easy sense of belonging.

The change in his attitude might have started with having Jillian arriving early with him. They'd grab the large horseshoe booth in the middle of the wall facing the bar, where they could see the game on the big screen to the right and the karaoke stage to the left and all the members of SG1 and Sg8 could share as long as they didn't all try to do it at the same time, or Annie didn't mind sitting on Scotty's lap in the chair pulled up to the open end of the table. Jack, when he sat with them, always took the end place facing the door and whoever might already be there had better move.

Now it felt kind of right to Daniel to be there with people whose faces he did recognize and with Jillian leaned up against him while she nursed whatever drink it was she wanted to try that month and now he knew he liked the taste of beer out of a pitcher more than out of a bottle.

There was a slightly different feeling on this particular First Thursday. The defeat of Anubis and the word of what had happened with the Replicators had created a party atmosphere unlike the simple stress-relieving raucousness usually associated with the get-togethers. But no one was quite sure that Jack would come. It wouldn't just be Colonel O'Neill. It would be _General _O'Neill and there might now be a line of demarcation that he could no longer cross.

The evening was already later than it usually got without Jack putting in an appearance and Daniel had already exchanged a few short conversational glances with Teal'c and resisted sending inquiring texts to Jack's cell that he would probably just ignore anyway.

Then Jack sauntered in as if he did it all the time, scanned the room automatically even though he knew all the exits. When his gaze finally landed on their regular table Daniel held up the empty pitcher of beer and gestured towards the bar. O'Neill nodded and worked his way through the crowd of grinning, welcoming SGC personnel until he was at the bar and standing next to Gerald Mallory. He leaned over as Mal said something to him, laughed and the Mal blew a long whistle over the noise of the crowd until everyone shut up for a moment.

Daniel expected some weird military protocol, something like "Officer on Deck" but that's not what Mal yelled next.

"What do you call the last man standing at the bar?" he hollered in a voice that would have been audible over a barrage of weapons fire.

With one voice the occupants of the bar shouted back, "O'NEILL!" followed by a host of raised glasses and hearty cheers.

It was clear from Jack's expression that he was laughing. Daniel laughed a little too and exchanged another look with Teal'c. There was something about Jack.

Holding a pitcher of beer in each hand, Jack made his way back through the crowd until he got to the table. Scotty stood up in true military fashion but Jack waved him back into his chair. One of their servers arrived at about the same time to clear away the empty baskets of fries and bring them all clean glasses. Daniel indicated the tall brown bottle the girls had been drinking all night and got a smile and a nod of understanding.

The noise had reached the loud party level again but they'd all gotten used to it after all these years of First Thursdays. A group made up largely of SG13 and 17 took the Karaoke stage and started singing New York New York.

"Where are the girls?" Jack yelled.

Daniel wondered if you could really call a decorated Air Force Colonel and two women with doctorates 'the girls' but since they never seemed to mind he let it go. They got to have the big booth and spend time with a blond, a brunette and a redhead. It wasn't a bad way to pass the time.

"They went en masse to the ladies room about 10 minutes ago," he answered.

"They have a tendency to travel as a unit for such purposes," Teal'c observed.

"You might want them to stay in there for a while," Daniel said.

Jack had poured three glasses of beer and slid one each across the table to Daniel and Scotty.

"Why's that?" he asked, diving in to his glass with enthusiasm.

"They each ordered a drink when they first got here and since then they've been doing straight shots of that," Daniel answered, with a nod at the big brown bottle, "and singing karaoke."

Jack snagged it in one big hand and read out loud, "Tequila Rose?"

"It tastes like a strawberry milk shake and that's the second bottle of it they've finished tonight," Daniel said.

Both Jack's eyebrows went up. "What were they drinking before that?"

"Jillian had a…." Daniel got that look on his face that meant he was searching his memory bank. Teal'c helped, "Strawberry Rose Margarita."

Daniel repeated it a half a syllable late and then said, "Annie had a …." He and Scotty spoke at the same time, "Checkered Flag and Sam ordered something that I won't repeat but I dared her to order in front of you."

"What have they been singing after all that?"

Daniel glanced at Teal'c again and they began listing songs all at the same time.

"Girls just wanna have fun –"

"Dancing Queen –"

"Danger Zone-" and even Jack groaned.

"Jillian and Annie did Take My Breath Away though Sam refused to participate – "

At that point the girls joined them in a kind of overwhelming onslaught of tight jeans and clingy sweaters, soft tousled hair and bright smiles. Jillian collapsed into the booth next to Daniel. Annie nudged her way onto Scotty's lap. Jack got up to let Sam slip in between him and Teal'c. Sam reached for the Tequila Rose and poured three shots.

"What wouldn't I participate in?" she asked.

"That song from Top Gun!" Daniel answered.

Sam groaned, tipped her head back and drained the shot. "Do we have to do that _every_ First Thursday? I keep hoping we'll get through one of these without someone yelling 'take me to bed or lose me forever'."

Jillian and Annie grinned, shoved their shot glasses back at Sam and Jillian said, "You know we only do it to bug you, right?"

"You succeed!" Sam said, raising her shot glass in a salute.

Jack had his head turned completely around so that he could see Sam.

"Where's Pete?" he asked.

"Stakeout," she answered.

"Oh. Too bad," Jack said, though he didn't sound anything but utterly neutral.

The group on the stage abandoned it after torturing Total Eclipse of the Heart. Annie jumped to her feet, pulling on Scotty's hands.

"Come on," she said, "Sam, Jillian, come on. We've got to get this place dancing."

Jack barely got out of Sam's way and Daniel let go of Jillian's gentle weight against him very reluctantly.

"Jillian!" he said, sharply. She turned and looked at him. "You promised."

She leaned over and kissed him sweetly. "I promised," she said and then took of through the crowd after Annie and Sam.

"What'd you make her promise?" Jack asked, refilling his beer.

Daniel glared at him and Teal'c answered. "She is forbidden from singing anything with his name in it."

"You're no fun," Jack said.

"So I've been told," Daniel agreed, putting his hand on the top of his glass so Jack wouldn't top it off.

Then Scotty was belting out Joy to the World with the girls backing him up and a crowd moved out onto the dance floor and started singing along.

Two more songs and they surrendered the stage to another group and came back to the table. The guys had ordered chili fries and Daniel had gotten Jillian and Sam diet cokes. Jack had started doing the rounds of the various groups and was currently watching a competitive game of pool.

"You should come sing with us, Dr. Jackson," Annie said.

"Daniel," he corrected, "and umm, no."

"Dr. Jackson has perfect pitch and a gorgeous voice but he doesn't sing in public," Jillian teased.

They talked and laughed and Sam got up after a while and went to play pool. Mallory and Rusty came to join them and started swapping stories that even Teal'c found funny.

The new group on the stage started singing My Girl.

"Dr. Jackson might not sing but he dances," Jillian said, dragging Daniel out of the booth and onto the floor with Scotty and Annie close behind them.

They danced through two more songs, getting lost in the music and letting the noise fade away for a little bit and then they became aware of Sam singing again.

It was Patsy Cline's Crazy and she was swaying while she sang and had her eyes closed.

_Crazy, I'm crazy for feeling so lonely _

_I'm crazy, crazy for feeling so blue _

_I knew you'd love me as long as you wanted _

_And then someday you'd leave me for somebody new_

"She really does have a dozen talents we don't ever get to enjoy doesn't she?" Daniel noted.

"She does," Jillian answered.

Daniel stopped doing more than rocking back and forth with Jillian so that he could watch Sam. He was still more than a little anxious about the way she was behaving and he didn't mean just this evening.

He listened to her lovely voice rise into a lilting, emotion filled crescendo.

_Worry, why do I let myself worry? _

_Wond'ring what in the world did I do? _

_Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you _

_I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying _

_And I'm crazy for loving you_

Daniel hoped that he was the only one in the noisy, overcrowded bar who noticed that she was looking straight at Jack O'Neill when she finished.

They all went back to the table after that, ordered more food and more beer and the girls finally finished the Tequila Rose. At that point Jillian stood up and pulled on Daniel.

"Let's go home," she said.

"I thought we were going to wait and let Teal'c drive us?" Daniel asked.

"That's the same glass of beer you started with hours ago," she said, outing him, "You're fine. Come on." She paused and shot a mischievous look at Sam, "Come on, Jackson, you big stud. Take me home or lose me forever."

The entire table groaned and Sam flung a paper napkin at Jillian that missed and went in Scotty's beer, which everyone seemed to think was hilarious.

Daniel dragged himself out of the booth, where he had actually gotten quite comfortable.

"Show me the way home, honey," he said.

Sam tossed her head back and pleaded with the ceiling in mock anguish, "Oh _god_, someone make them stop."

(0)


	26. Chapter 26

Usually I cross post chapters from Sunshine and Shadow to Moonlight and Steel. This one actually started as a chapter of Moonlight and Steel and got cross-posted at Sunshine and Shadow. It's very Jillian-Sam, Jack-Sam-centric. It goes in season 8 right before Zero Hour.

(0)

"It wasn't anyone's fault," Sam insisted. She shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position on the stone wall. She winced again and ground her teeth against the fire-flash of pain. Her shoulder was more than bruised. It was most likely dislocated. She wished tac vests had more in the way of padding.

"I should have warned you," Jillian said. "This is a desert. This is clearly ruins of Egyptian design."

"Every time we explore a ruin, or anywhere, there's a chance we can be hurt," Sam said, "Crashing through the floor comes under 'random acts of nature' in this case. What _is_ this? It's not a basement and the floor is stone, so it's not a well."

"It's a cistern," Jillian answered, looking up at the open sky beyond the stone walls.

"Isn't that a well?" Sam asked.

"In that it's designed to hold water, yes. But a cistern is built to catch and hold rainwater. They're carved into porous stone so that it acts like a natural filter to clean the water."

Sam looked up and swallowed a wave of nausea that rose up her throat. The movement of her head caused dizziness and tunnel vision. She pulled her knees up tighter.

"Clear skies so far," she said with a tight smile.

Jillian looked at Sam anxiously. There was a bandage wrapped around the gash on Sam's head. It had been an utter bitch to stop the bleeding. They had fallen through the floor together and both been knocked out cold for quite a while and it seemed that she must have bled the entire time. Dried blood covered the side of her face, her neck and most of the shoulder of her uniform. They'd both still been carrying full packs – both a blessing and curse. They had food, water, first aid, flashlights and everything else to survive for a few days – barring rain and going easy on the water. But the extra weight of the packs had caused them both to fall faster. Sam had landed on her shoulder and side and it seemed she'd used her head to break her fall. They'd both agreed that landing on her shoulder had been preferable to landing on her P90.

Jillian had just about landed feet first and then fallen on Sam. She was pretty sure her ankle wasn't fractured but it wouldn't hold her weight and she'd nearly passed out from the pain when she'd tried. Her wrist was also aching and had swollen considerably over the last hour. She could rotate it, gingerly, but it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Broken pieces of plaster and wood had fallen down with them. They were both covered with it and Jillian suspected that, even if she hadn't hit her head in the fall, something had hit her on the way down.

They had both taken what amounted to an overdose of aspirin with a healthy swallow of water.

"How's your head?" Jillian asked.

"Aching doesn't even begin to describe it," Sam admitted.

"Shoulder hurts like hell?" Jillian asked, almost conversationally.

"Oh yeah," Sam agreed. "How's your ankle?"

"Being held together by my boot. I think the aspirin helped, though it's upsetting my stomach."

"You should eat something," Sam suggested.

"They'll be here soon," Jillian said, comfortingly. "Scott had to have heard us fall and when he couldn't find us he went for help."

On a rare Sg1/SG8 joint exploration they had been exploring the ruins with Scotty Lawrence, Jillian's SG3 teammate and astronomy wiz-kid. Scotty had wandered in one direction, towards something he thought looked like an Observatory. Sam and Jillian had gone from one building to another until the floor in this one had collapsed out from under them. They had shouted for him after getting Sam's head bandaged. Sam's radio had been smashed and while Jillian's appeared to be intact they couldn't raise anyone.

"Unless he fell through the floor over in the other building," Sam said, conversationally. "Then we're going to have to wait until we're overdue to check in and for someone to make the – what was it? Six miles we hiked to get to this part of the ruins? And then we have to hope they brought something with them that can be used to rescue us…"

"Are you choosing to look on the bright side?" Jillian interrupted.

"Just trying to review all our options," Sam replied. She leaned her head back against the stone wall and closed her eyes. "On the bright side though, we could have fallen into a cistern full of water and drowned."

"Very cheery," Jillian noted.

"You're the civilian," Sam commented, "I'm supposed to stay upbeat and take care of you."

"You did! Pretty sure you broke my fall. Don't fall asleep," Jillian cautioned. She was more worried about Sam's head injury than she wanted to let on. She reached over and put her fingertips on Sam's neck for a moment. Her pulse was steady and her skin was warm and dry. Maybe a little too warm but nothing that would indicate Sam should be raving with fever. She hoped Sam hadn't noticed that her hand was shaking.

It didn't escape either of their notice that it was starting to get dark. The blue sky overhead was starting to streak with shades of crimson and orange and pink.

"You know," Sam mused," even if this is a cistern and not a well you and I are in for a world of hazing after we get rescued."

"Timmy and Lassie?" Jillian guessed.

"Oh hell yeah, if not much worse," Sam said.

"You know, in the TV series, Timmy fell into a lot of things but never into an actual well," Jillian remarked.

"I don't think that will help us very much," Sam answered. Then she coughed and followed it with a sharp pain-filled inhalation. "I'd give just about anything for a pillow right about now."

"A pillow?" Jillian repeated, amazed by the military mindset. "If we're wishing then let's try for an infirmary bed and an IV drip of morphine."

"That could be better," Sam admitted.

"Do you want to try to lie down and use your pack as a pillow?" Jillian asked.

"No, I'm afraid to move."

"I'm sorry I can't reset your shoulder," Jillian said, sadly, "But with my wrist out of commission I'm afraid I'd do more harm than good."

"It's okay," Sam said, quickly, "I'm fine if I just don't move…. Or breathe….or cough….."

"More aspirin?" Jillian asked.

"No, we should be careful about that," Sam said.

They were quiet for a little while, though they both had the same concerns about letting the other fall asleep. Sam obviously had a serious head injury and they weren't really sure about Jillian. They'd both been out cold.

"Can I ask you something?" Sam said, "Something personal? Even if I might regret asking and you don't have to answer?"

"Now I'm intrigued," Jillian said, "but it's not like anyone can really hear us at the moment. So go for it but I'll hold you to that bit about not answering."

She saw Sam start to nod and catch herself before doing it. She opened her eyes, winced and focused on the wall across from them.

"When you and Daniel make love, do you keep your eyes open?" Sam blurted out.

Jillian blinked in surprise. She paused for a moment and wondered if they were suffering the effects of the fall or if there was some unusual gas gathering in the bottom of the cistern. She mentally shrugged. Sam was her best friend and she wouldn't have asked if it wasn't something important to her for some reason.

"Yes," she answered, "as long as I can." She smiled a little, "Then we reach a point where I don't think either of us can keep them open anymore. It's just a natural reaction. Daniel compared it to sneezing once but he was joking."

Jillian stopped just before the words _why did you ask _managed to get out into the air. Sam was still contemplating the wall. It gave Jill a chance to study her for a moment. Sam was more pale than she had been a few minutes ago, and now she seemed sheened in sweat.

"I've never had that," Sam said, softly and drew Jillian's attention back to their conversation.

"What?" Jillian asked.

"Someone I wanted to keep my eyes open for," Sam answered. "Someone I couldn't look away from. They always seem to be looking back with too much…. something….. dominance, desperation, wanting more from me than I wanted to give."

"All of them?" Jillian asked. She didn't want to add _even Pete _but she thought the question must have been in her eyes. She had no idea really how far Sam had taken her relationship with Pete but she assumed it was beyond just good night kisses at the door. She also had no idea how many other lovers had been in Sam's life. She'd been engaged to Jonas

"Yes," Sam admitted, "sometimes I think maybe it must be me. Maybe I just can't ever give everything to a relationship. I don't think I ever have." She moved just her eyes so that she was looking at Jillian sideways. "What about before Daniel?"

"There was really only one man before Daniel," Jillian admitted. "He was a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris when I was attending the Institute of Art and Archaeology."

"One of your professors?" Sam managed to get one eyebrow to arch without grimacing in pain.

"Not one of mine, but he did teach there," Jillian said, "He was fifteen years older than me at the time." Her tone became musing, "He taught me a lot about being female and it seemed very exciting and glamorous then. I don't remember keeping my eyes open all the time. I don't think I did. It was very very different than it is with Daniel, on an emotional level and, well, yeah on a physical level." She stopped again to grin a little, with a flash of mischief that belied how much pain she was in, "He was shorter for thing – two inches shorter than me – and nature had not blessed him nearly as much as She did Daniel."

Sam groaned but not from pain, "Oh my god I wish you wouldn't tell me these things."

"Like you haven't been traveling off world with Daniel for the last seven years," Jillian teased.

"We don't exactly sleep together," Sam reminded her. Jillian tried to grin a little but then Sam's face got serious again. "I think it must be me."

"Must be you what?" Jillian asked.

"That's something wrong with me," Sam tried to explain, "or became wrong with me. I've fought so hard against being 'the girl', almost all my life. My Dad wanted me to be a boy. That was obvious not just from what he named me but in every aspect of our relationship and then Mark came along and he didn't need me to be the 'boy' anymore but somehow it was too late and that was my identity. Then, let's face it, I didn't exactly choose the most feminine career even though I can't imagine choosing anything else. Then you're with this person you care about and you want to make love and suddenly you are just really and truly and no getting around it 'the _girl'_ and I'm not sure that's something I can do."

Jillian was beginning to wonder if Sam was getting delirious from the pain.

"Maybe it's not you, it's just the men you've been with. Maybe they want to treat you like 'the girl' or want you to act like that. Maybe you've just never been with someone who just wants 'Sam,' Jillian said.

"Maybe," Sam said, slowly, "I've just never been with anyone who can get me that far outside my own head."

Jillian had just started to work up the courage to say _even Pete_ when Sam held her hand up.

"Do you hear that?" Sam asked.

Maybe it was military training but Sam had caught the sound of voices in the distance before Jillian. When Jillian finally heard them too her eyes widened with cautionary joy and a little hesitation.

They hadn't seen anyone else on the planet. It appeared deserted but that didn't mean there wasn't a potentially hostile force approaching. They both remained still and silent, even as they unsafed their Berettas and held them at the ready.

Then they heard a very familiar voice shouting in annoyance.

"Carter!"

Stunned Jillian said, "Is that Jack?"

"Yeah," Sam answered, though she continued to listen until they heard it again.

Why was the General here? He didn't even go off world anymore. Where they in that much trouble?

"_CARTER!"_

This was followed almost immediately but Daniel's slightly frantic, "_Jillian! Sam!"_

The women started hollering but it echoed hollowly off the stone walls and they weren't sure they could be heard at all, much less at a distance.

"Jill, hold your ears," Same said.

Glancing at her, Jillian saw that Sam had pointed her gun at the sky and was preparing to fire it. She pulled her knees up, lowered her head and put her fingers in her ears.

The noise was still as deafening. The shockwave from it sent pebbles and debris from the walls raining down on their heads. They didn't hear anything for some time afterwards but when they did it was directly overhead.

Sam was now almost translucent. Jillian couldn't imagine what the pain of the kickback from the Beretta had been. Sam drew her knees up to her chest and dropped her head onto them.

"Carter!" Jack barked

"Jill? Are you all right?"

Jillian looked up to find a circle of anxious faces looking down – Daniel, Mallory, Rusty, Teal'c; And Jack O'Neill hiding fear and worry behind a face like a thunder cloud.

"Umm, no," she hollered back, "We're both hurt and kind of stuck down here."

"We'll be right down. Just hold on, okay?" Daniel said.

Jillian looked at Sam and rolled her eyes. Sam looked up and smiled a little; then rested her head against the wall again. She truly looked awful now. Pale and sheened to the point of luminescence, with no color in her lips and her hands visible shaking.

"You heard the man, Sam," she said, "Hold on. Just a little bit longer."

"Okay," Sam murmured.

(0)

The men set to work unpacking the rappelling gear they'd brought with the rest of the emergency equipment.

"God dammit," Mallory growled.

Jack had to agree but he was concentrating on making sure the rope that would hold him on his descent over the edge were being securely attached to a stone pillar and Teal'c. Mallory started to reach for the other set of gear but Daniel was halfway into the harness already.

Mal glanced at the General in protest but Jack shook his head. Nothing short of a blow to his head would stop Daniel from going down there after Jillian.

So far no one had dared to argue with Jack about his ability to be the other one climbing down. His knees alone disqualified him. But rank had its privileges. He'd come through the Gate with the rest of the rescue equipment for the sole purpose of finding her.

When he had heard the sound of the Beretta firing he'd been filled with both hope and terror. When he had seen her hunched miserably in the bottom of the shaft he'd been filled with a soul-deep sense of gratitude and a sense of urgency to get to her that bordered on violence.

Sam was one of his personnel. Sam was under his command. Sam was under his protection. Sam had saved his life a dozen times. Sam was….

He cut the rest of his thoughts off sharply. Every thought now had to be on the rescue. Every thought, action and response had to be military. He adjusted the headlamp and the shoulder straps on the harness and silently told his knees to shut the hell up.

Jack had climbed in so many various conditions that it didn't hit him until he was over the edge of the cistern and several feet down just how dark it was starting to get.

"You okay?" he asked Daniel.

"Yeah," the reply was short and to the point, "I swear I'm never going to put her through anything like this again."

The comment confused Jack at first as he concentrated on keeping his feet firm against the sheer walls, trying hard not to dislodge anything that would rain down on Sam and Jillian. Then he realized it was usually Daniel that needed rescuing, Daniel who had disappeared and left Jillian frantic and wondering.

_Karma's a bitch,_ Jack thought.

Then he was at the bottom of the dimly lit shaft, unclipping the ropes and making his way unerringly to Carter.

"What are you doing here? Sir," she added the honorific almost as an afterthought.

"I brought the pizza and beer," Jack answered. He flipped on the headlamp as he squatted down and used every bit of his training not to react to her appearance.

Deathly pale with one side of her face covered in dried blood, she looked more like a ghostly apparition than a living being. She was trembling violently even though she was red hot when he reached out to touch her neck and feel her pulse. Her arm was twisted into a grotesque parody of what it should be. Sam didn't move away from Jack's hand, in fact she seemed to settle into it a little for a moment, not opening her eyes. Jack dropped his hand to Sam's good shoulder and squeezed before letting go.

"O'Neill! What is their condition?" Teal'c shouted down into the hole.

"Neither one of them is climbing out of here on their own!" Jack shouted back. He had given Jillian a swift glance on his way to Sam and observed her badly swollen wrist already. Daniel was kneeling over her and he could hear their voices murmuring a language he didn't understand. He wondered what it would be like to share a completely private language with someone. He'd seen the way Daniel had reached for her, how their arms had gone around each other, heads touching, faces pressed.

If he had not been who he was and Sam was not who she was, he'd have had her in the same kind of embrace. His relief was that great. His feelings were that strong.

"We'll have to be hauled up in tandem," Jack finished, dragging his thoughts back into order.

"Understood," Teal'c and Mallory answered in unison.

Jack turned his attention back to Sam. He put a hand on her forehead that somehow turned into a caress with the flat of his palm down to her cheek. She felt feverish and he wanted to drag her into his arms and hold her tight. He tried not to pull his hand back as if he had been scalded.

"So, this is different," he remarked, trying to sound casual as he continued to run his hands over her lightly, looking for more injuries. She winced noticeably when he touched the outside of her right thigh. No doubt she had landed on the Beretta.

"What?" she asked.

"Me rescuing you. Lately it's been the other way around."

Their eyes locked and held without blinking.

"Won't happen again, sir," she promised.

"Damned right it won't, Colonel," he growled. "But I'll yell at you later."

"Thank you for that, sir," she answered.

Jack swung his head around and barked, "Daniel!"

He'd tilted the head lamp up but Daniel still squinted and threw up an arm to block it.

"_Jesus_, Jack, warn me before you try to blind me okay?" he asked.

"I need your help," Jack said shortly and something in Jack's voice drove the sarcasm out of Daniel.

"Doing what?" he asked, cautiously.

"Carter's going to have to hold onto me to get out of here, and she can't with her shoulder like this," Jack answered.

"You mean?" Daniel sounded a little sick.

"Done it before," Jack said, "You have to hold her."

"Sir," Sam sounded too weak to protest.

Grimly, face ashen even in the diminishing light, Daniel gave Jillian's hand a brief squeeze, said, "Ya skoro vernus" _I'll be right back;_ and then moved around in front of Sam.

He gathered her into his arm and held her tight against his chest. "Gonna get a little cozy here for a minute okay?" he said, soothingly, "Scream if you need to. I'll never tell."

Jack moved around to take hold of her arm. The damp stone spread aching pain up into his knees. It was nothing compared to what he was about to do to Sam.

He took her arm in both his hands and heard the sharp hiss of breath like a knife in his own heart.

"I'll be quick," he promised.

"Just do it," Sam snapped.

With speed clearly born of experienced Jack pulled her arm straight out, twisted and they all heard the loud _pop_ as it settled back into the socket. Sam threw her head back and screamed, right in Daniel's ear and then slumped against him bonelessly.

Jack's eyes met Daniel's.

"She passed out?" Jack asked.

Daniel nodded, still looking grim. Jack moved around beside him.  
>"Give her to me," he said, "Can you get Jillian out of here?"<p>

"Yes," Daniel answered.

He shifted Sam into Jack's arms as if she was a sleeping child, gently, trying not to wake her. He went straight to Jillian but saw Jack stroke one hand over Sam's hair from his peripheral vision.

Jack would take care of Sam now. He was free to concentrate on Jillian. She was crying softly when he got back to her, though she had tried for a brave face when he had first rappelled down.

Daniel had been afraid to so much as touch her.

"Where's Scotty?" she asked, anxiously.

"He managed to get bitten by something," Daniel said, "some kind of big insect. We really need to talk to him about how to explore ruins safely. When he couldn't find the two of you he came back to the camp."

Her expression was alarmed. "Is he all right?"

"Hadn't swelled up, no fever and he made it six miles on his own. We sent him back through the Gate. What hurts?" he had asked.

"Pretty much everything," she'd admitted, "But you know those reservations we've had to go dancing on New Year's Eve?"

"Yeah?" he had paused in his search for her injuries to look back up into her eyes.

"I think we're going to have to cancel them," she was panting in a little from pain.

"Leg?" he asked, anxiously.

"Ankle," she answered, "I can't put weight on it at all."

He switched to Russian for some reason, perhaps needing to create a bubble of privacy around them; and he preferred the way Russian could be made into something lilting and soothing.

"Eto vse v poryadke." _It's all right._ "Ya lyublyu tebya." _I love you._ "My budem po-prezhnemu vykhoditʹ na obed." _We_ _will still go out to dinner._

At that point Jack had summoned him to help with Sam but now he returned to Jillian.

While he used the first aid supplied to put a splint on her wrist he said,

"You know this violates our Treaty?"

"What section?" she asked.

"Subsection C, paragraph 2," he quipped, "clearly states that I am to be the only one allowed to wander off and get lost or hurt."

"I don't remember agreeing to that during the negotiations," she said.

"It's in there," Daniel said. "Come on. I need you to stand up and hang onto me."

"Stand?"

"I've got you," his voice was so full of certainty that she gave him her hand with no hesitation.

Still, it was more like Daniel picking her than getting back on her own feet. He lifted her so that her arms were around his neck and her legs were wrapped around his waist. Her head rested safely on his shoulder. Daniel gave the rope a tug as he walked back over to the wall.

"Uderzhatʹ menya krepche," he whispered. _Hold onto me tight._

"Navsegda," she whispered back. _Forever._

Jack watched them getting hauled to safety. As soon as he could, Daniel had his feet braced against the wall and was walking them back up. He kept watching them until he saw Rusty leaning over to help finish the last few feet, taking Jillian from Daniel even as she grunted in pain disappearing over the edge.

Jack let out a breath. One down. One to go. He stopped stroking Sam a split second before Mallory looked over the edge.

"Ready any time you are, sir," he said.

"Gotta wake her up first," Jack muttered.

"Sorry, sir?" Mal asked, cupping a hand over his ear.

"We'll be right up!" Jack shouted back.

His voice jolted Sam back into consciousness. Jack's arms tightened around her a little possessively.

"Whatcha doing?" she murmured a little groggily.

"Rescuing you," he answered.

"Good," she sighed.

Jack knew she was about out of strength.

"Okay, let's go," he said.

He got her on her feet and into a similar position to the one Daniel had used to hold Jillian except that Sam didn't put both arms around his neck. She didn't want to lift the one they had just put back in place so she wrapped that one around his ribs.

Jack paused for a moment and cradled the side of her face in his hand. Her skin was so much paler than his anyway but right now the difference was shocking.

Everything between them had been like lately, as if the sun had permanently gone out and left everything in stark moonlight.

Wires so crossed they were in danger of frying the entire circuit board.

"Sir" she breathed softly. With her shoulder solidly back in its socket where it belonged she didn't seem to be in as much pain, just exhausted.

He knew it was a risk, but he let his eyes hold hers, his face serious. Sam bit her lower lip uncertainly, and his gaze darted down to the tiny motion, then drifted up to meet hers again, his expression shifting subtly.

It was a little like being transported in time, standing once more in one of those moments that have happened less and less often over the years between them, as they had realized it would always be more than a little flirtation, when they had both realized it could get very very serious and very out of control.

When the Goa'uld had proven to be tougher to kill than they had thought and everything had taken longer than anyone had ever imagined.

He knew she had tried to uncomplicated things by seeking a world beyond the SGC. He just wasn't sure it was working. He'd tried not to be a selfish bastard. He'd accepted command of the SGC as a signal to her – married to my career here, ask Sara, go on, do what you need to do.

He was just too much of a coward to let her go completely.

Jack gave the rope a fairly savage tug, braced one foot against the wall and said,

"Hang on as tight as you can. If you feel like you're slipping, say something and we'll rest for a moment; and that's an order."

"Yes, sir," she murmured.

She rested her head on his shoulder and he made no move to stop her. Then he hollered,

"Teal'c! Let's go."

With Sam wrapped around him and clinging tight, Jack leaned back against the rope and carried her to safety.

(0)

YA skoro vernus - I'll be right back, Russian


	27. Chapter 27

There was a certain crystal clarity that came over Jack O'Neill whenever a weapon was pointed at him; and a certain irony that the weapon was not in the hands of one of the many rebel Jaffa prowling the streets of Ta Rego. It wasn't even in the hands of a Goa'uld, not that Goa'uld would use anything as crude as a gun.

It wasn't even in the hands of someone who _really_ wanted to kill him – like Daniel in the middle of one of their altercations; or like Frasier had been when he'd missed one too many routine check-ups.

In fact, the wild-eyed man with the disheveled hair shouldn't even have this weapon. Weapons were forbidden on Ta Rego – Px2 444 for the SGC types. That was why this place had been chosen as a meeting between SG1 and the potential new Jaffa allies. The problem, Jack decided, with making something forbidden was that eventually someone would get around that particular little rule.

And 'someone' – i.e. the crazy guy – had come bursting through the door of the bar only a few moments before, waving and firing the weapon haphazardly, screaming about invaders and demons. He was now holding that weapon pointed square at one General Jack O'Neill, USAF, Earth. The man had no idea who Jack was, or who SG1 was. But he knew who the Jaffa were. The two that had been meeting with Jack and his team were lying on the floor dead, staining the red tile floor with even redder blood. Distantly, Jack thought that being shot in the gut by a madman in some backwater bar in the middle of nowhere was a really stupid way for a Jaffa warrior to die.

Being caught in that same random shooting was not – _NOT_ – the way Jack was going to lose a member of his team. He didn't dare glance over at Daniel, though he was getting enough from his peripheral vision to know it was bad, very bad. Daniel was holding his wadded up jacket against the bleeding wound in Carter's side. Sam's initial cry of shock and pain had given away to the occasional whimper. Daniel's whispered pleas to lie still followed. God, Jack wished she would just pass out.

Barely moments ago they had been sitting at a table in the corner waiting for Teal'c and their new contacts to join them. Sam and Daniel had begun an incomprehensible discussion about Ascension that sounded like Philosophy and Science battling it out for world domination. Carter said something like "but if the _soul_ is potentially an immortal informational construct it could be considered a part of physics; and Daniel had asked her if she thought the soul could exist separately from the body and therefore exist both before and after death…..

At that point Jack had let their voices slide mercifully to the periphery of his consciousness and watched the door carefully for the signs of Jaffa.

The two Jaffa, bearing the forehead marking of Ares, had walked in. The madman had come bursting in behind them and all hell had broken loose. Blast after blast of ear-splitting noise from a projectile weapon fired into a previously peaceful afternoon. The Jaffa had turned, roaring like enraged bulls and dropping to their deaths just as hard.

Military training had Jack on his feet instantly, diving for cover. The sound Carter made as she was struck down pierced his brain like a knife driven hilt deep.

Then he remembered Daniel shouting, "Sam!", panicking but reacting the way Jack need him too - ripping off his jacket, jamming it into the wound, holding it with both strong hands, pressing down hard. Immediate emergency first aid – stop the bleeding. Their eyes had locked for the barest moment – Jack's determined and angry, Daniel's wild.

Then Jack had spun around to take in the situation and found himself looking down the barrel of a lethal looking – if homemade – weapon. He froze but spared one look around the room.

Twelve occupants, huddled together behind overturned tables or up against walls, eyes more panicked than Daniel's. Two of the women who had been pleasantly serving drinks began sobbing uncontrollably.

"_Shut up!" _the mad gunman screamed and brandished his weapon at them. _"Shut UP!"_

Momentarily out of the line of fire, Jack spared one glance at his team mates. Carter was lying on her back, taking slow, shallow breaths, gasping in pain. He knew from her fixed expression she was going into shock. Daniel's hands and olive green pants were stained and covered in blood. His jacket was unrecognizable. Jack could hear him still whispering softly to Sam to stay still and it would be all right.

With that weird telepathy they seemed to have, Daniel knew Jack was looking. He turned his head just enough to make eye contact again. Grimly, Daniel shook his head.

Jack turned away and slowly stood. That was when he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun again.

"Leave them alone!" Jack said, loudly and in the voice he used with new recruits that needed terrifying.

"Jack!" Daniel snapped.

_Shut UP, Daniel, _Jack thought viciously, hoping their telepathy was still working.

The gun was immediately pointed at him again. He held up his hands in what he hoped was the Universal gesture of being unarmed. Silently he cursed the parameters of this mission. He was naked without a weapon and he didn't have so much as a pocket knife at the moment. All he had was his radio and the knowledge that Teal'c was on his way.

But maybe what Daniel had tried to convey in that one desperately snapped syllable was right.

Maybe it wasn't the time for military bullying. But, _crap,_ this talking nonsense was Daniel's job. Ordinarily Daniel was pretty good at multitasking. But at the moment his primary task was keeping Carter from bleeding to death and Jack wanted him concentrating only on that.

Carter. _Sam. _Jack's heart beat her name. Blood and Carter should _never _go together. Blood and any of the team he still thought of as his shouldn't go together but – sorry Teal'c, sorry Daniel – never never _never Sam._

"They're just scared," Daniel said, looking over his shoulder at the wild man.

"Daniel!" Jack's turn to snap.

He watched his team mate's mouth set in a grim line as he turned back to Carter.

"_Shut up!" _Wild man shrieked again.

"Daniel's right!" Jack said, again loudly, drawing attention to himself and away from everyone else. _Gah, _when had he ever thought to hear himself say _that?_ He got his temper and his voice under control, "They're just scared."

"You shut up too!" the gunman said, pointing the gun roughly in the vicinity of Jack's forehead.

_Good,_ Jack thought, _Point it at me, not at them. Just keep looking at me; and Daniel for the love of all that's holy keep her alive._

"Look," Jack went on, "Let's … talk. What's your name? I'm Jack."

Daniel always started with names. Well right after the 'we're peaceful explorers' spiel, but Jack didn't think that was a necessary component at the moment.

Wild eyes – blue Jack realized – studied him tensely. The weapon wavered in his shaking hand. The man looked like he had not slept in days and there was a heavy stench of alcohol, something they had discovered flowed freely on Ta Rego. He looked like he had lost his grip on reality days ago.

Jack was more than capable of subduing an opponent, armed or not, but the number of innocent bystanders scattered around the room had him at a disadvantage. He had to get close enough to their attacker to keep everyone safe; and he had to do it fast. Every beat of her heart drained more of Carter's life into Daniel's already saturated jacket.

If Jack could get six steps closer he might be able to grab this psycho's wrist and disarm him.

"Just tell me your name," he urged, in what he hoped was a fair imitation of Daniel.

Confusion and conflict played on already demented features.

"You don't need to know my name," he said, finally.

"Maybe not, but what can it hurt?" Jack made a show of shrugging, "I'd like to figure out why we're all here. You must want something. Sooner or later you have to tell us what."

Jack held those mad blue eyes firmly with his own. _Just keep looking at me, _he ordered silently, holding that gaze with the sheer force of his will, _don't look at Daniel. Do NOT look at Sam, you son of a bitch._

"Strom," the man conceded finally.

"Strom," Jack nodded, cordially, as if they had just been introduced at a military function. He opened his mouth to speak again and was rather started to hear instead the crackle of his radio and the deep, crackling voice of Teal'c.

"_O'Neill."_

The captor tensed like a cornered animal.

"What's that?" he demanded.

"My radio," Jack said, quickly, "My friend is trying to contact me."

Those deranged eyes swept over him, as if finally registering the odd uniform, the insignia patches. It had to be obvious they weren't from around here.

"If I don't answer it, he'll come looking for me," Jack told him just as Teal'c's voice said his name again, this time more insistently.

"Answer it then," Strom hissed.

Jack reached for his radio, took a breath and said,

"That you, Bra'tac?"

_Come on, Teal'c._

There was a brief hesitation. Jack could almost see Teal'c brow furrowed in concentration. Finally, the deep familiar baritone answered him.

""Yes," Teal'c said slowly, "It is I, Bra'tac. Are you all right, Jack?"

O'Neill felt a flood of relief he didn't dare show. Teal'c never called him anything but 'O'Neill.' He 'got it', though it was a prearranged code they had barely just prearranged. In fact they had done little more than discuss it over beers and Thai take out on O'Neill's deck a week ago.

"Yeah, you know how it is. FUBAR as always," Jack said, "I've got Daniel and Sam here with me. We're in a bycatch at the moment. No sign of our other companions. You might want to go trolling for them."

Fishing terms. Though he would deny it, Teal'c hated fishing. It was one of the reasons Jack had picked it for worse possible scenarios.

"Understood," Teal'c said, after another pause, "Perhaps I will try casting around for our other friends and see what they are doing. Bra'tac out."

Jack felt no small sense of relief. The 'other friends' were SG's 3 and 13. SG13 had all the medical supplies they had been bringing to offer the rebel Jaffa – including military first aid kits.

And Teal'c _knew._ _Teal'c _knew.

Jack took a single second to glance at Daniel. He didn't need any of their weird common wave length to read his thoughts. They were written so loudly on his face that Daniel might as well have been screaming. _We have to get her __out__ of here. Do something!_

"So how about telling us why we're all here?" Jack asked, with a forced calm he was far from feeling. Was that how it worked for Teal'c? Did all that stoic calm mask a rush of anger and adrenaline that threatened to make his blood boil? "You came in here screaming about demons and devils?"

For a moment Strom's mad expression seemed to lose focus all together. Then Sam's painful moan broke the pitiful sobbing and terrified whimpering that had been going on around them. Jack's heart soared briefly with the knowledge that she was still alive and then a swift twist of horror for the pain she was enduring. He shot another glance at Daniel.

_Help her!_

Daniel's return glare said, _Do something!_

Strom refocused, lifted the gun pointing at Jack again. His other hand trembled violently, with madness or anger Jack did know which. He pointed at the dead Jaffa on the floor.

"They are _demons_," he said, "They come here and steal people, steal their _souls._"

_Great,_ Jack thought. They couldn't even deny that. There was a lunatic waving a gun at them, holding twelve people hostage, with two dead and one possibly fatally wounded; and they couldn't even argue with his reasons.

"Those men weren't here to do that." Daniel again.

This time instead of being annoyed, Jack noticed that Strom kept the gun pointed at _him_ but had turned most of his attention to Daniel. Jack didn't really want the guy paying attention to Daniel, but he also needed to get closer. Jack moved an inch and stopped, looked at Daniel.

His teammate was still crouched by Sam, still keeping pressure on her wound.

_Keep talking._

He wasn't sure but he thought Daniel nodded.

"These men came to talk to us about rebelling against their masters, the ones who send them," Daniel began. He didn't make any kind of eye contact with Strom. He stared at a spot midway between him and Sam. "The ones who came before, the others with the marks on their foreheads, they've been enslaved for thousands of years. They came here this time to talk about freeing their people _and _yours. The Goa'uld, their masters, are your true enemy."

"I don't believe you!" Strom shrieked.

Frustration flowed across Daniel's features.

"It doesn't matter if you believe me!" he shouted, "You killed them, so whatever we hoped to accomplish here is over! But these people didn't do anything to you. This woman didn't do anything to you and she's _dying. _Let us go so we can _help _her._"_

Jack's entire being flinched. A movement behind the smoky glass windows, past the heavy curtains, caught his attention. In muted tones, distorted by old glass, he could see a group of blurry shapes all wearing olive drab.

The cavalry was here. But if Strom got an inkling of it all hell was likely to break loose again.

_Wait, Teal'c, just another second,_ Jack pleaded. _Oh, god, Sam, hang on, hang on please…._

"Look, Strom," Daniel went on, and Jack could tell he was struggling for his diplomatic tone. "Give Jack your weapon and we'll all just go outside and talk about this, let these people go on with their day."

"No, no no," Strom moaned."They won't listen. They'll take me away….."

Jack took a step forward, hoping Strom wouldn't notice. Daniel saw it though and rushed on,

"Strom, please. Let us go so we can help our friend and we can prove it to you. We can prove the ones you call demons are rising up in rebellion. No one else has to die here today. We'll make them listen. No one has to take you away. But we're going to be less inclined to help you if you let one of us die."

Panic flared in Strom's eyes. Daniel saw it. Jack pressed his advantage and took another step forward. Sam made a noise that was part moan, part sob and Jack fought to ignore it. _For God's sake, Carter, just pass out! Give up for once…_

"That's right," Daniel said, softly and reasonably, though his voice shook. "We'll help you….."

Another step towards the disoriented madman and Jack lunged. He was fast. He was Air Force trained. Strom got off two more shots that went harmlessly into the ceiling as Jack grabbed his wrist and forced his arm upwards. The struggle was short and brutal, but madness didn't stand a chance against Jack O'Neill; not when the life of one of his own was on the line. The panicked hostages screamed and Teal'c came blasting through the door with SG3 and 13 hard on his heels.

In the dimly lit, chaotic, smoky room, Teal'c unerringly found O'Neill. Strom collapsed from a decisively delivered blow to the neck from Teal'c. Jack emerged with the homemade weapon in his hand like a trophy, panting from the stress and the adrenaline coursing through him.

Teal'c went to check the fallen Jaffa, but they were dead. Men and symbiotes were beyond saving. He gave O'Neill a short, mournful look and then went to help with Sam. Later they would have to find a way to make this right with the rest of the Jaffa ready to rebel against Ares, to bury and mourn their dead properly. But right now they had living to attend to.

Col. Dixon and Airman Bosworth of SG13 were already working on Carter; Balinsky was looking pale and sick, but he was helping Wells build the stretcher that would carry her back to the Gate. Daniel was slumped against a wall, knees drawn up and head hanging. He was covered in blood, dried and caked on his hands, turning his uniform pants stiff and black with it.

Jack spared another moment to watch SG3 work. They might be marines but they were not with hearts. They were checking the former hostages, binding small wounds, righting furniture and mopping up spills – generally behaving like the best the Air Force had to offer. Strom was zip tied to a stretcher while Ta Rego authorities argued over what to do with him.

Teal'c lifted Carter onto the stretcher and prepared to lift one end of it. Col Dixon waved Jack away.

"We've got her, sir, and she should be all right. It looks like the bullet nicked an artery in her hip but Dr. Jackson stopped the bleeding. The authorities are going to want to talk to you."

Jack grimaced but knew they were right.

He watched them carry Carter out the door and felt as if someone had torn a piece of his soul out and walked away with it. She was bandaged tightly, with a drip bag of fluids attached to her arm. Her face was stark, like carved porcelain and still so impossibly lovely. Her eyelids were closed over those startling moonstone eyes

Her next stop was Earth and several hours of surgery. He had done everything he could for Carter. Heart like lead, he turned his attention to the other shattered member of his team.

He crouched down beside Daniel and said,

"Hey."

Daniel didn't answer. He just stared at the inside of his glasses and looked miserable. Jack realized there were even flecks of blood on the glasses. His heart did a slow somersault.

_Sam,_ Jack's thoughts dragged him unwillingly into that place where he usually dared not go, _Sam, goddammit. Don't you dare leave me before… before… before I tell you the one thing I can never tell you…._

It hurt. God how it hurt. He wanted her so badly, to curl up around her in bed and hold her and sleep. He wasn't even sure he wanted sex. He just wanted to sleep together, in the most pure and innocent sense of it, to just hold her and know she was safe; and it would never happen because he was old and she was gorgeous. He was boring and she was endlessly fascinating. He was her CO and she was his beloved, but never, never could she be his lover.

Jack slammed all it back into the inward world he had created, where all his unspoken feelings for Samantha lived and would always live. He felt the moment when it was all swallowed up again, like a glass sliver in his soul. He would never burden her with any of this. Too much truth would ruin everything they had. And if that meant she could never be entirely his, then what of it? He would always be the one who was safe, the one she could come to without fear, the one she could follow without hesitation.

And he wanted Sam Carter to follow him, forever if he could manage it.

"She's going to be fine," he said out loud.

Daniel nodded.

"You saved her life."

Daniel nodded again; and now he looked at Jack. About a thousand different things passed between them in that single look. Jack put his hand on Daniel's shoulder and squeezed.

"Come on" Jack said, "Time to go home."

"You have to stay," Daniel's voice was raspy. "The authorities…."

"You don't," Jack said firmly. "Go back with Carter. Tell Hammond I'll tell him everything when I get back."

His hand moved from Daniel's shoulder to under his arm and hauled him to his feet. They walked towards the door and Jack stayed maybe a little closer to Daniel than he really needed to.

"And after that?" Daniel asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Jack drawled, "I kind of feel like going fishing."

Daniel shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"You would," he muttered.

(0)

Jack hated sitting vigil in the infirmary. The only thing he hated more was _not_ sitting vigil if one of his team was there. He slouched in a chair beside Carter, eyes down, almost closed really. He could close his eyes to the things he didn't want to see, like Carter still and quiet and pale as a sliver of moonlight. Her hands were lovely, even lying on the sheets, strong and capable.

He could close out the sounds he didn't want to hear, like the heart monitors and other soft beeping noises that marked where he was.

But he couldn't close his heart to the things he didn't want to feel. Meeting her had been fate. Making her a member of his team had been his choice. Falling in love with her had been something over which he had no control at all. The moment he had seen her he had turned into an hourglass, with his heart filling up while his brain emptied; even though he had never wanted to be in love again _ever._

Love had ripped him to shreds. It had opened his chest, ripped out his heart and eaten it whole, leaving him crying in the dark. He had found a way to go on, but he had built up defenses like a suit of emotional armor.

Carter had cracked that armor with a single smile and his life had no longer been his own any more.

Jack shifted in the chair and wondered why the SGC couldn't afford more comfortable ones. They must know that people sat in here sometimes for days. He'd only been here a few hours but he felt as if he had been days without sleep; as if he had flown through enemy fire. Janet had been there a little bit ago and asked him when he had eaten last. When he couldn't remember she'd made him promise to go get something. He had promised sincerely, but he still hadn't gone.

He was slouched and still seeking a more comfortable position when Daniel came into the room. He was carrying two of the standard green coffee mugs, steam curling invitingly from the tops. Jack took the one Daniel held out, making a grunting sound that was probably gratitude.

"Couldn 't find a way to get a beer in here?" Jack asked.

Daniel had pulled up another chair and paused midway to sitting in it. He stared at Jack for a moment, gazing at him blankly from the other side of Sam's sickbed.

"Into the infirmary?" he asked, incredulous. "I wouldn't even try it. Brightman's scarier than you are and way more likely to kick my ass for breaking regulations."

Jack grunted again. It was the same basic sound as gratitude but probably meant agreement this time. Daniel eased into the chair and took a few cautious sips from the mug. Jack regarded him for a moment. He looked awful, drawn and gray, with circles under his eyes that looked like bruises.

"Have you slept?"

Daniel shook his head. Jack considered ordering him to bed, but was too tired himself to start the argument. He let it go.

"Have we heard form Teal'c?" Jack asked.

Daniel shook his head, "Not yet."

The minions of Ares had scattered widely after Jack O'Neill had unceremoniously blown his mother ship to bits. Some had been absorbed by other system lords. Some had sought Teal'c, as word of his actions on Maybourne's planet had spread. Teal'c had returned the bodies of their fallen brethren to the one group of rebel Jaffa they had managed to locate.

When Jack looked less than pleased that Teal'c had not contacted them yet, Daniel said,

"He'll be all right. He's got Bra'tac and SG2 with him."

Jack leveled a stare at Daniel that seemed to go through him and hit the opposite wall.

_Right,_ Jack thought, _Teal'c's out of communication. Carter's in a hospital bed and you ….. you were dead … and we somehow got you back. No one gets that lucky twice._

Jack swallowed the need to sigh in frustration and thereby give away his carefully concealed emotions.

Daniel considered trying to get Jack to talk about it, but decided that he much preferred being back among the living. He indicated the bound report in Jack's hands with a nod of his head.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

Jack turned it around slowly and held it up so Daniel could read the cover.

_"Wormhole Solutions to the Semiclassical Einstein Field Equations,"_ Daniel quoted, "By Dr. Samantha Carter." He lifted his eyebrows quizzically and peered at Jack over his glasses. "You understand any of it?"

"Not much past the word solutions," Jack admitted.

Daniel leaned forward in the chair and reached a hand over the bedsheets. Careful that it didn't hit Sam, Jack passed it to him.

Daniel leaned back, took a hefty swallow of coffee and flipped past the table of contents to the first page. After reading for a few moments he said,

"Whoa," in a long drawn out single breath of utter confusion and deep admiration.

"Yeah," Jack drawled.

Daniel flipped a few more pages, turned the report sideways to look at some equations and then shook his head slowly.

"And she chooses to take your orders," he said.

"Yeah," Jack said, in an equally mystified voice, _and so do you, _he added silently though no less mystified.

It was true. The scientists on his team were both there because they wanted to be. Major Samantha Carter of the US Air Force might be compelled by military law to do as he said and to go where the USAF sent her. _Doctor_ Samantha Carter, the one who was capable of reversing polarities, disarming weapons, repairing fried circuits, bypassing and otherwise torturing technology, who wrote incomprehensible papers like the one Daniel was still thumbing through – _that _Samantha Carter was smart enough to know her value to not just the Air Force but to the Stargate program. She could have asked for any assignment, been on any team.

Most of the time Jack convinced himself that Sam was on his team because she was an adrenaline junkie – just like him. No one but an adrenaline junkie piloted planes in the Gulf War, fearlessly marched through the Stargate and went joy riding on a motorcycle. So of course she'd want to be on the front line team.

Most of the time…..

Other times he remembered how he caught her looking at him when no one was watching; and how she had once thrown him on a bench and tried to seduce him. Okay, there had been an alien virus involved but she could have thrown _any _guy on a bench; and as much as he wanted to blame that same damned virus, it hadn't been the only reason his self-control had crumbled to dust. He had tried to deny he wanted her, at first at least….

_You want me._

_No, no …. Not like this…._

Alert to every sound she was making, Jack heard the subtle change in her breathing a half a second before Daniel. Then those incredible eyes were open and Sam was taking in her surroundings with immediate recognition. Finding first Daniel's face, she smiled a little.

"I'm all right," she stated, reassuring Daniel when it should have been the other way around.

Then she saw Jack and tried to sit up, tried to come to attention. Her chin lifted. Her should squared and straightened. If the effort to sit up caused her any pain she took it without flinching. Jack felt a rush of pride and much _much_ more. Sam was damned alert for someone who had been bleeding her life away in under Daniel's hands less than 24 hours ago.

"Sir," she said.

"At ease, Carter," he said, around the lump in his throat.

She settled back against the pillow and he could tell she was trying not to look relieved. He didn't dare touch her. He didn't dare even make eye contact. If he did, the way he felt at the moment, they would strike sparks and set the infirmary on fire.

"How do you feel?" Daniel asked, drawing her attention.

"I'm fine," she repeated in steel-edged words.

"Yeah, right," Daniel chided.

She seemed to relax a little. "I've been worse," she answered.

"Me, too," Daniel joked.

"You've been dead," Sam finished for him and they grinned.

Daniel put his hand over hers, careful of the IV. Jack resisted the urge to growl at him to remove it. Sometimes he hated Daniel's blissful civilian status; the status that made it possible for him to touch her, to smile at her, to call her Sam and show her as much affection as he wanted.

Jack kept his thoughts to himself. Outwardly he snorted and sat up straighter. Only his team could joke about being dead. He wouldn't cross that line with Daniel again. He would _never _cross it with Sam, not if he could help it, not if meant giving up his own life to prevent it.

"How long do I have to stay here?" Sam asked.

"Doc said a day or two," Jack answered.

"But I'm fine!" Sam protested.

"You argue with her then," Jack said, relieved to be able to put the burden of ordering Sam around onto someone else for a change.

Carter's mouth set in a firm line and Jack felt a small thrill of trepidation. He knew that look. Damn. _Teal'c _didn't argue with the medics. She was braver than he thought.

Daniel broke the moment by fighting a yawn and losing in a spectacular manner.

Jack stood and smacked his hands together decisively.

"Okay, then it's settled. We'll let you rest."

Twin sets of blue eyes looked prepared to protest again. Daniel lost another battle with a yawn and nodded. Sam's lovely blond head settled more fully on her pillow.

Daniel stood.

"I'll come check on you later," he said to Sam and she nodded.

He frowned at Jack, yawned again, gathered coffee cups and left the room.

Which left Jack alone with Sam. For a moment they simply gazed at each across the space that separated them.

"You need to rest," he repeated.

"I can rest in my quarters," she replied.

"Will you?" Jack questioned.

Sam didn't quite glare at him. She wouldn't dare actually glare at her CO. But she wasn't happy that he knew her that well. She looked away first.

Jack grunted and accepted the victory without needing to gloat about it. He wanted to tuck her in and smooth all that glorious hair off her forehead so that he could press a kiss good night there.

"Rest, Colonel," Jack said, with all the Air Force bluster he could manage under the circumstances, though his heart was wracked with tenderness.

"Yes, sir," she answered reluctantly.

It took every bit of control, all the military discipline he usually rejected as a matter of course, to turn around and leave the room.

(0)


	28. Chapter 28

Alpha-Jack alert. Not a whole lot of Sam-whumping in this one (unless you include Jack backing her into a wall….) Time frame for this is after season 8. Will probably continue if the Muse will tell me how.

(0)

Sam knew who it was at her door. She walked the length of the hallway with no small feeling of trepidation and opened the door as slowly as she could. There was only night outside the panes of glass but she still knew. Only Jack knocked. Only Jack knocked that hard and insistently, like he was going to put his fist through the door.

"Sir," she said, smiling a little though it felt forced, "Hey."

Jack walked in, straight in, kicking the door shut behind him with one decisive shove and strode towards her.

"Sir, what?" she asked, a little breathless.

She backed away as he got closer, breaching her personal space. She sought the end of the hall, where it opened into her Great Room and would give her some ability to maneuver away from him.

He knew what she was trying to do before she did it. (_Black-ops_ she thought a little frantically). He turned her deftly so that her back hit the wall and she was pinned with barely inches between them. His hand came out and slipped around the back of her neck, pulling her off the wall. He kept the small space between them open but she could feel all of him as if he was pressed all up and down against her. He put his hands on the wall above her shoulders, on either side of her head, holding a push-up that corded the muscles in his arms and neck.

His breath ruffled her hair as he leaned close and said, harshly, "Tell me I'm wrong."

Stunned, Sam stared at him. Her normally ordered and high functioning brain cells scattered.

"About? I don't… I don't understand –"

Jack cut her off with an impatient groan.

"Tell me I'm not the reason you dumped Shanahan," the words ground out of him as if they were being dragged across hot coals. "Tell me it had _nothing_ to do with me."

They were standing so close she could feel him shaking. The pulse in his fingers against her neck was hammering. He was shaking as if he had held something in as long as he could and he had been everything everyone else wanted him to be and he was ready to lay it all down and go home now…. If only he knew where to go and what would happen when he did, if he would be safe….

Sam inhaled a long shivery breath and suddenly her pulse was pounding harder than his. She didn't dare move.

"The house…" She began. Ever since Orlin she'd been spooked about surveillance.

Jack was still breathing against her neck.

"It's clean," he said, "I had it swept this afternoon."

While she'd been at work… He'd been planning this… this…. whatever _this_ was. Sam's breath caught on a sob.

"Kerry-"

"Over. She's gone. Tell me I'm wrong and I'll go," he said.

If she didn't move she would break so she stepped forward, erased the distance between them, ground against him – her hips, her breasts and shoulders – slipped her arms around his neck and hung on as if she was drowning. Her life passed before her mind's eye at lightning speed in a series of moments that centered entirely on Jack.

Facing a slow frozen death in Antarctica, separated by a force field with Jack refusing to leave her, his low, deep voice admitting he cared about her more than he should, his arms around her all the times her military discipline had failed her – Daniel's multiple deaths, the loss of Janet, the realization of how close she had come to losing him in that same battle, all the times their eyes had met and all the things they had never said.

Resolve collapsed under the weight of years.

"Don't go don't go don't go." The words tumbled out her like a burst dam. "Jack Jack Jack, oh _god_, oh god _dammit _don't go."

Jack fell forward, a crush of weight that pressed her against the wall. His hands dropped from the wall to her hips, dragging her closer.

"Not wrong," he exhaled softly.

"No," she admitted, hiding her face in the hollow of his shoulder and inhaling the sharp clean male scent of him.

The tension ran out of him. He leaned against her, lost in her. Suddenly exhausted, Sam slumped back against the wall, whimpering.

"It's okay, it's okay," he murmured, soothingly. He was rubbing his cheek against hers, nuzzling his face into her hair, "It's the same for me. I love you. I adore you. I have from day one."

Sam let out another sob.

"Jack, I can't," she said. Her hands fisted in his t-shirt.

"Can't what?" he asked.

"Can't do this," she said, voice shaking, "I can't… I've been conditioning myself not to do this, not to _want_ this for almost nine years." Sam put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him away enough to look up into his dark, desperate eyes. "This is _not_ going to go over well for our employer and you know it."

He let go of her so suddenly she almost fell. Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans he pulled out a sheaf of papers folded into rough quarters and held them out to her.

"What?" she said, staring at them blankly.

"My retirement paperwork. I wanted to know…. I needed to know…. About you," he said. Then he stopped and sighed and scrubbed hand through his graying hair, "Dammit, Sam, I'm too old to feel like I'm not sure what to do. Help me out here. Do you love me?"

She stared at him and then nodded helplessly.

"Yes," she said, "Same as you, from day one."

"Then it's settled," he said, pressing closer again, "The program needs you more than it needs me."

"That's _not_ true," she said, hotly.

"It doesn't need me as a General, of any kind," he answered.

"You'd give this up, for me?"

For the first time she saw a smile pull at the corner of his mouth.

"The endless paperwork, politics, the stress of sending people – good people – through that Gate, worrying about _bunting_? I'd only keep that if I didn't have anything else. But to have you…. If I can have you…."

His voice trailed off.

Sam continued to stare at him. Her world was being subjected to a series of small earthquakes.

"Can we get out of the hallway?" she asked.

He backed up, relieved to have something normal to do. "Sure."

He let her go first, followed her as far as the breakfast bar, where he stopped and let her go into the kitchen without him. She opened the fridge and pulled out two cans of Coors.

"No stout, sorry," she said. She stayed in the kitchen, with the counter between them.

"It's a little strong anyway," he answered. He popped the can, took a long swallow and said, "What now?"

Sam looked down at the counter, then out the window for a long time.

"I'm scared," she admitted, "Scared of all the things that can go wrong."

She looked and sounded so vulnerable that his heart stuttered and then throbbed.

"Come here," he said.

She looked at him sharply. "Is that an order?"

"It's a request," he said, softly.

He perched on one of her bar stools and spread his feet apart so she could stand between them. Sam hesitated and then walked into his arms. A profound sense of peace and 'rightness' settled over her.

"What could go wrong?" he asked.

She started to say something sarcastic and stopped. He was serious.

"I'm not sure," she admitted.

"Sam," Jack said, softly. He cupped her cheek and jaw in his broad palm. His strong fingers scrunched in her hair. Sam's skin tingled in response, down her neck and shivers went down her back. "I know this will be hard for you, but can you stop _thinking_, for just a little bit?"

"I'll try," she said, with a small startled laugh.

Jack started nuzzling her face with his eyes closed. She nuzzled back, watching him. When her mouth almost touched his she moved away, inhaling sharply. But Jack turned his head, caught her and pushed forward and then she was sighing into his hot, wet, open mouth. He stood up off the stool, wrapped his arms around her and bent her backwards. Sam clutched his shoulder blades for balance. A soft, low moan worked its way up from Jack's throat and then he kissed her deeply, pressing and sliding his tongue along hers in long, slow thrusts and Sam was kissing back, stroking back and groaning in response. She'd never been kissed like this and she'd never kissed anyone like this. It wasn't even kissing, she decided. This was oral sex. _This_ was what that meant.

Sam melted into him, let him lock her up in his arms as her spine went limp and her jaw and tongue and lips worked to kiss him as if her life depended on it.

The need for air broke them apart, gasping, panting and she looked up and found Jack's face close to hers, looking at her with eyes that were suddenly hot, dark liquid sex and she clutched him a little harder.

"Hey," he said, softly, "No freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out," she said.

"Yes you are," he said, shifting so that she was standing on her feet again but still leaning on him.

"Maybe a little," she acknowledged.

Concern shadowed across his face. "You know that all you have to say is no? Right? No means no to me. Just tell me."

Technically no papers had been filed anywhere. Brigadier General Jack J. O'Neill was still her CO. The issue of subordination was still there.

And Jack could actually force her, if he chose to. No matter how strong she was, no matter how well the military had trained her, no matter that she was nine years younger than he was, if Jack was serious about it, Jack could have whatever he wanted.

She realized that was a little bit of a turn on, and that she should feel ashamed of that, but she didn't.

She knew Jack would never do that. Jack would castrate anyone who did that to her. Jack would castrate them, feed them their own testicles and then slit their throats.

And that was a turn on too.

Her hands slid down his side, fisted once again in his shirt and pulled him forward. She tilted her head up and their lips met again, soft at first and this time she opened hers first.

As an answer it was everything Jack had hoped for.

(0)


	29. Chapter 29

The kiss went on and on, slipped into scorching, with her hands on either side his head and her tongue probing his mouth. Sam had gone straight from _can't do this, can't want this, can't have this, can't, can't, can't…._ headlong into wanting him, wanting _this_ and wanting it _now._

"Hey," Jack said, gently, pulling away, "Throttle back a little there, hotshot."

Her eyes locked with his. She leaned in again.

"I want you to make love to me," she said, bluntly, her mouth against his, "How far do I have to throttle back to get that?"

All the blood in Jack's body rushed into his groin. He hadn't experienced a rush like that since the first time he'd been catshot off a carrier. He slid his fingers into her hair and captured her mouth again.

"Ease off, "he said, nipping at her lower lip, "We're not a couple of coneheads here, we can do this right."

They kissed but he took control, easing them into something slow and wet and erotic if no less demanding. Over the long years of denial, when his own thoughts had gone rogue on him and he'd allowed the thought of making love to Samantha he'd always had enough control to make it brief and undetailed, a fleeting fantasy.

Those fantasies had never included kissing like this. _Christ this is heaven_. The thought ran through his mind even as he got lost in kissing her – lost in the sweet swirl of her clever tongue and warm breath filled with the taste of beer and salt and he realized he was tasting tears.

"Sam," he murmured and had just enough time to say it again before they were locked together in another kiss, "Sam."

Maybe it was the same kiss, over and over, with only pauses for breath. Sam moaned into his mouth – an inadvertent, out of control sound that drove him even wilder. He let go of her with one hand, stood up and yanked on the leg of his jeans in an attempt to make more room.

Taking her cue from that, Sam's hands reached for his belt while she toed out of her loafers. Jack considered stopping her and immediately abandoned the idea. He twisted and bent over so that his mouth found the delicate curve where her neck melted into her shoulder and teased her with something between a kiss and a soft suck. Sam's head lolled back, baring her throat. She groaned out loud with her hands frozen on his open belt as he sucked and kissed and licked his way to her ear.

"Call it," he whispered, "Bedroom, couch, floor, I don't care, whatever you want."

Sam hesitated, shivering. The bedroom seemed so incredibly intimate and the last guy who had been in there with her was Pete. She wasn't sure she could do this in a room haunted by the ghost of that relationship.

The couch seemed like she was asking him to settle for seconds and, while she knew he would, it didn't seem right to ask a man like Jack O'Neill to be second to anyone.

"Bedroom," she said.

They made their way back down the hall, kissing and clinging and shedding clothes. The muscles of his abs contracted when Sam wrenched his t-shirt out his waistband and pushed it up over his head. She left him tangled in black fabric, blinded until he struggled out of it himself and tossed it aside. While he had been lost in his shirt she had stripped off her own.

Jack inhaled sharply and caught her between his body and the wall again. It was impossible over the course of seven years and countless missions not to have seen all of his team in one state of undress or another. Underneath every military issued off world uniform Sam had ever been forced to shed, or had torn to bits, she'd had on military issued no-nonsense-gets-the job-done undergarments.

He'd had no way of knowing that at home, under civilian garb, Sam apparently preferred to shop from the Victoria's Secret catalogue. She was wearing something made of lace and satin in a bright shade of cotton candy pink, shockingly feminine, shaped around her breasts, lifting and holding them to emphasize the swell and the deep shadow between them. He thought he knew the size and shape and curve of her lovely body almost as well as he knew his own. He'd been wrong.

He wanted her to leave it on as much as he wanted it off. He smoothed a hand over her throat and her shoulder, ran just his fingertips from her collarbone down until he was cupping her breast and teasing its tip with her thumb. Her skin was warm, flushed and her breath hitched.

While he teased and reveled in touching, Sam finished with his belt and fly, slipped fingers under two waist bands and pushed downward. Jack put his head back against the wall and fixed an unseeing stare on the ceiling as he toed out of his shoes.

Everything puddled at his feet with a clink of belt buckle and keys and spare change.

She'd seen him stripped to underwear before. She even knew the length and shape of him morning hard and not attempting to hide it as he had tried to beat Daniel to the coffee brewing over the campfire. Waking up with three men on too many overnight missions had left her jaded in many ways.

She had never seen him naked, erect, already dripping with desire, intensely masculine.

"Oh, _god, _Jack," she whimpered.

She slid her hands down his back, cupped muscled rounded buttocks and pulled him close. His arms went around her, pausing to unfasten the cotton candy confection in the hopes of getting it all the way off. She let go of him long enough to grant that wish.

When she pressed against him again there was a shock of flesh on flesh, skin to skin that made them both hiss through their teeth and then groan as if mortally wounded. He loved her body, had always loved it. She was tall, so tall he didn't have to bend down to kiss, long limbs, smooth creamy skin, lush curves of hard-won muscle. He loved her body mostly because it held the incredible spirit and intelligence that made up who she was.

They made it to the bedroom and to the bed where she sat down on the edge and he helped her shed her sweatpants – with Jack wishing he'd taken a little longer so he could have enjoyed the matching cotton candy panties she had on underneath. A surge of desire went through him at the sight of her naked, skin flushed pink, hair tousled, sprawled back on her elbows and waiting for him.

He crashed on to the bed beside her, gathering her into his arms and kissed her frantically. Lips and hands searching and touching they managed to push bedspread and sheets and blankets out of the way and find pillows and stretch out side by side.

Some of his brain cells, all the ones that were laser focused on protecting Sam, gathered together for one last important attempt at sanity. He should have thought of this way before it got this far.

"Sam, _Christ,_ wait, _wait_," he reached down and caught her hand just as it was making the muscles in his lower abs twitch.

"_What?_" she sounded desperate and frustrated.

"Wait," he said, again, "_God dammit,_ I'm so turned on I can't _think_," he stopped, breathing heavily, holding her like a life ring. "I didn't exactly come here expecting this. Unless you have something in the house that's latex or the equivalent we shouldn't…."

"Do we need it?" She looked at him with slightly glazed eyes, "We're both Gate-cleared."

"I wasn't thinking about STDs," he said. His knew his team's medical files as well as he knew everything else about them, "What about….?"

She leaned up to kiss him. "Got that covered," she said, cupping his neck when he resisted the kiss and dragging him down.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said.

"Good because I _hate_ latex," he said. Her hand drifted down his chest again, past his navel and brushed the indent beside his hipbone. Whatever else he had been going to say was lost.

Unable to resist the feast she was offering him, Jack dropped his head to her breasts to suck on one and tease it lightly with his tongue while worshipping the other with his fingers. Sam inhaled as if she was going underwater. She had one arm under his neck and she moved that hand up to grip the back of his head to hold him there.

She moaned, writhed, wriggled until she had one leg over his hip and her free hand was closing over his cock and the moment she touched him Jack arched and threw his head back and ground his teeth together and groaned her name.

He was drumhead hard, balls tight and full when she stroked them. He groaned again, incoherent this time though she thought he might be trying to curse. She wondered how rough she could be and decided that was something she could find out next time.

_Next time…_ The whole idea made her shiver and her body ran molten and fluid and aching for him.

Jack moved, using his body mass to press her into the mattress, onto her back.

"God, Sam, _god,"_ he said, with his husky voice close to her ear and his lips still sucking at her neck, "I want this to last. I wanted to go slow, when this finally happened, I wanted it to last all night."

"It will," she promised, though at that very moment all she wanted was to take Jack's mouth and kiss him until she could _taste_ that voice. She was melting in ecstatic submission to the iron strength of Jack's body. "Next time, all night, forever, I promise, but right now, Jack, for god's sake, just _take_ me."

She spared one brief concerned thought for Jack's knees but since it didn't seem to be stopping him she let it go. She was to the point of rather desperately wanting him on top of her, wanting his weight and strength to cover her. She shifted, opened for him, pushed up with unquestioning adoration and desire.

All the air seemed to go out of her as Jack's heavy, muscular, beautiful, beloved body mounted her. She arched, bowed her back into the mattress to lift her hips, to sheathe him as deeply as possible. Smooth, hard flesh filled her. She clawed his back, pressed her forehead against his neck and gasped over and over in ecstasy, drenched in arousal.

His warm breath brushed past her ear. Every thrust, every hard pulse in his cock throbbed made her body sing. Jack shifted, moved up, his legs spread hers wider; the weight of his chest and shoulders pressed down on her, crushed her breasts. Arms banded with corded muscle held her tight and kept her from moving as his hips thrust an ancient rhythm.

Little bolts of lightning sparked behind her closed eyes. She moved on wave after wave of sweetness. She lost the sense of time passing and began to exist on to rise and fall on the fast, urgent press of heat and flesh.

"_Jack_," she groaned, clutching his back. Exquisite pleasure rolled through her body.

"I'm here," he answered, moving in her, making her aware of every inch of the curved, hard cock filling the inside of her.

She was lost in the awareness of Jack holding the inside of him open; his strong arms holding the outside of her together. She groaned, her hands tightening, nails digging into his back.

Jack's mouth moved over the shell of Sam's ear, softly outlined it, and kissed her earlobe and neck before humming a question.

"Mmmmm?"

"Yes," she breathed, "Yeah, oh god, Jack."

Orgasm spread tingling fingers over her, raced to a single point, curled the bottom of her spine and she was arcing up into him while ecstasy throbbed between her legs, a bright, fierce blaze of climax like none she had known before.

"Sam Sam Sam," Jack repeated her name until it was lost in a low deep moan as orgasm broke over him. His arms tightened around her just to the point of pain. She felt a molten surge of heat and fluid as he pulsed and gasped and soldered them together body and soul.

He stayed over her, relaxing his arms only a little. Forehead to forehead, lips brushing. Warm, safe, protective weight eased down on her, covering her. A heavy blanket of skin and muscle and bone shielded her as the world came back into focus and her head stopped spinning.

She ran her hands down the damp valley of his spine, over the long column of nerves and bone and back up to his shoulders. He grew heavier and she finally said,

"Jack?" and it meant _I could stay like this forever but you can't bend your knees like this much longer…._

And he groaned in acknowledgement and folded over like a slow-motion house of cards. Just before collapsing onto his back he leaned over to feather kisses against her eyelids and cheek and temple.

"Don't go," she whispered.

"I won't."

"I mean it."

"I know."

"I don't mean just tonight, I mean ever."

"I won't."

"I can't live without you," she said, "without you in my life every day."

"Sam," he lifted his head to look into her eyes and said, "We'll figure it out."

She believed him, because it was Jack and if he said something he would find a way to make it true. He sat up a little, flailed around with a shaking arm until his hand encountered sheets, which he then pulled up over them. His head hit the pillow again but he waited until he felt her relax in his arms. Only then did he subside into profound, overwhelming limpness. Fulfilled. Replete. Exhausted.

"I love you, Sam," he said, turning enough to press a kiss into her hair, "I love you so _fucking_ much."

She had nestled into his shoulder.

"Love you too," she said and it wasn't nearly as sleep-slurred as he would have expected it to be. "Stay?"

"Yeah," he felt his eyes getting heavier, "Gonna."

"It's okay, it's okay, you're here, I'm fine, go to sleep," she answered.

He didn't miss the way she had curled up with him in an easy tangle of arms and legs, in the casual way of long-time lovers, or people who had slept together for years.

For the next few hours they slept, never losing contact, never turning completely away from each other. Jack slept on his back with one arm over his head with Sam sprawled on top of him. When Sam turned and curled up on her side Jack turned and spooned up against her, fitting body to the curve of hers. At some point an uneasy dream invaded Sam's peace and he soothed her without ever really waking up, having done it countless times off world. This time he got to hold her and stroke her hair while he did it.

Jack woke before she did, with a grey creep of dawn staining the windows. He gathered Sam against him, adjusted the covers and pulled up a blanket when he realized her hands and feet were cold. Then he lay awake for a while, staring into the waning darkness as the room turned from grey to pink to gold and the shafts of sunlight through the panes of glass got more insistent.

She woke with military awareness of where she was and who she was with. Tilting her head up she smiled a little and said,

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself," he answered. "So, what do you want to do today?"

She appeared to consider that for a moment and then said,

"Call in sick?"

"Lovesick?"

"And I hear it's contagious," she said, nodding seriously.

"We better both stay in then," he said.

He rolled over, gathered her in his arms, pressed against her firmly.

"I can be okay with that," she whispered, just before he kissed her.

(0)

A/N – Hmm, the Muse tends to run off and play with Moonlight and Steel when there's something coming up at Sunshine and Shadow that is really hard to deal with.. (cough-Heroes-cough).

A 'catshot' is an AF term for a jet being catapulted off a carried deck.

There's been some discussion about Sam and Jack's ages. My first impressions of Star Gate (after the movie) were formed in the first season. Jack says he is 40, in Brief Candle, which means he was born in 1957. Sam is usually shown to have been born in 1968. There's a lot about that to love Chinese astrology-wise. It makes Sam a monkey – "Monkeys can run circles around other people with ease. They are curious and clever people who catch on quickly to most anything. Monkey people generally can accomplish any given task. They appreciate difficult or challenging work as it stimulates them and makes them think."

That actually puts eleven years between them, which I might change it to, though I am happier with 9 for some reason. Sometimes Sam seems much too young to have accomplished all that she has.

I know there is written canon that gives Jack's birth year as 1952, which puts 16 years between them and enters the realm of 'creepy' for me. So, in my world, a 7 can look kind of like a 2 on a small screen and is probably a 7.

Chinese astrology-wise, 1957 is the year of the Rooster and Jack is soooooo a Rooster – bossy, blunt, Roosters make great leaders, creative, diligent and motivated. He is a little reserved and quite careful in his decision-making. Roosters are hard workers as well, and can handle several tasks at once. They are quite efficient and self-sufficient. They take on responsibility without a cause and are motivated only in wanting to be successful. Sometimes they can be abrasive. Roosters make excellent members of the armed forces.

The webpage I checked for this also said Roosters like fishing and hiking, which made me laugh.

Apologies for not being able to post the links to the sources for that.


	30. Chapter 30

Sometime between Moebius and the beginning of Season 9

(0)

The storm was bad and getting worse and she was insane to be out in it. She was even more insane to be on the Indian in this kind of weather, with fall leaves and whipping wind and darkness all around. She bent low and gunned the bike anyway.

There was only one reason to be out on a night like this.

One stubborn, obstinate, six-foot-two-inch, brown-eyed, pain-in-the-ass-reason.

(0)

The storm was raging so hard, with wind and rain blowing sideways and the occasional horrible crash of thunder, that Jack wasn't aware of the pounding on his door until it became truly loud.

Who the hell was crazy enough to be out on a night like this, at this hour _and_ pounding on his door that way?

Okay, well there was Daniel….

He wrenched the door open, shouting "_What_?" and found Sam shivering in the doorway, drenched, blue-lipped and shivering.

"What the hell?" He reached for her arm and yanked her through the door, into the narrow hall and slammed the door against the storm and the night. He didn't turn around, didn't look at her. He'd discovered in the last thirty six hours that rage wasn't very effective against rejected love but he still couldn't let it go. "I thought we were _over, _finished, done, hit the road Jack, _literally_?"

Two nights ago they'd had a short, truncated, horrible conversation about his decision to resign from the SGC and move to DC and finally get his knee replaced; and all right _fine_ he had made the decision without even asking her and he _had _kind of promised her that he would retire.

So she had a point.

He'd thought they had made up because somehow without ever reaching any kind of consensus they had wound up in her bed and it had been wild and passionate and he had fallen asleep in ruined sheet and tangled blankets with most of her sweet weight draped across him.

Then yesterday morning had happened.

_Her hand on his shoulder had woken him with a shove._

"_Wake up, Jack."_

_He had woken instantly as he always did, pushed up off the sheets and rolled over to look up at her, blinking in the bright light of dawn._

"_Go home," she said, "We're over. This is over. I'm ending it. No hope of reconciling. No possible future. Nothing you need to stay here for or come back here for. Just go home and pack and go to DC and I hope you find everything you want there."_

_Jack had stared at her, certain he was dreaming._

"_You don't mean that," he said._

"_Yes, I do. I've never meant anything so much in my life. Go home."_

_Jack had stood up, dragging sheets off the bed and around his hips to give the illusion of some kind of dignity._

"_You think doing this will be easier on me because you say it's over," he shouted, "You think last night didn't mean anything to me? Don't you understand the difference between your value to me and your value to the world? The world needs you way more than I do and I've always known that. I will always love you. I don't just say things like that. Whether or not I live here with you, sleep with you or get to see you every day I love you. There are things you need to do and I can't go do them with you, not this time- "_

"_NO!" she snapped, "You're going to get over me and I'm going to get over you; as soon as we have two thousand miles between us that's going to happen. I'm not going to wait and watch this relationship slip away by inches. I want it over. NOW. Get dressed. Go home."_

_His heart pounding all he could think was __I am home! Home is where you are!_

_He had made an attempt at humor. "What? I don't even get to shower first?"_

"_You can shower at your place, or on the Base. I don't care."_

_At that point she'd thrown his clothes at him in a wrinkled bundle and walked out of the room._

_It took him some time to find his shoes because one was behind the door and the other was behind the potted plant in the corner. He had to sit down because one knee felt wrecked and the other felt worse._

_He could hear the shower running and the bathroom door was closed. He suspected if he went to try the knob he would find it locked. He had gotten his jacket, walked the two miles to where he had left the truck in the Safeway parking lot with his knees on fire and his heart in pieces._

_He'd tried to call her all day and gotten no response. He'd been worse than useless at work and he'd finally sent all nonessential personnel home to ride out the predicted storm with their families and friends._

_He'd done what she demanded, finally, and gone back to his house. He'd tried to eat, finished half a six pack, sprawled on the couch and scrolled through the channels, slowly over the sports channels and quickly over the science stations in case there was something on she might have watched if she was here with him and not on an offworld mission._

_He watched a Simpson rerun and found no joy in it. Then he had finally gone to bed, slipping into clean sheets. He would have preferred to leave the ones from the weekend, the ones that still smelled like Sam._

_He'd lain awake for a long time, on his back, with his arm flung sideways in the space that Sam should occupy._ _In his mind, Jack could feel Sam's body against his, her skin warming his, her hands reaching for him as her lovely eyes glazing with pleasure; dozens of those moments over the past few months, dozens of transcendent moments that went so far past physical pleasure that there was no scale, no measurement. He could feel the trust when she lay sleeping in his arms. He could see her laughing, really laughing, relaxed, happy….._

_They had finally been happy._

_He's spent the day packing cardboard boxes with stuff he intended to give to charity, trying to ignore the storm, checking in regularly with the SGC and then the evening had started to fall and now…._

He turned with teeth clenched, forcing his hands to stay open and looked at Sam.

Her hair was tousled and soaking wet just from running to his front door. Her ivory skin was blue-white with cold. Rivulets of water were running down the creases of her black leather bomber jacket. Her jeans were soaked to midnight blue and stuck to her. She was shivering violently.

But that wasn't what he immediately saw. What seized his immediate attention was the black and blue bruise around her left eye and cheekbone, the scratches on her other cheek. Someone had backhanded her, right hand across the left side of her face. There was a cut butterfly-stitched on her forehead.

Jack knew another moment of blind rage that had nothing to do with her kicking him out of her life.

"What the hell?" He said, again, but softer, moving towards her and lifting her hand.

She jerked her head away and closed her eyes until she knew he had stopped advancing.

"We had some trouble on P9X-922," she said, dismissively.

Jack took a long breath. "Teal'c?"

"He's fine."

"Daniel?"

"Fine too."

He knew a moment of unspeakable relief and then went on,

"Did you ride your bike here?" he asked.

She nodded, avoiding his eyes.

"In _this_?"

Now she did look at him, nodding again, "It was all I had at work. I needed to see you. I needed to say I'm sorry…. I…I…would have ridden through much worse."

Jack made a noise under his breath. He finished the distance between them in a single short stride and started opening her jacket.

"Get out of this," he said.

He felt her withdrawal, her uncertainty and made another irritated sound, "You're soaked. I'm not asking for sex. Get all this off and find something in my room that will fit you. Where's the Indian?"

"In the driveway," she said, teeth starting to chatter as he stripped the jacket off of her to reveal a white turtle neck that was striped with the water that had run under her collar.

"A classic motorcycle out there in this?" Jack asked, incredulous. He knew how much that bike meant to her. He spun her around and pushed her in the general direction of the bedrooms with a hand between her shoulder blades. "Go, get into dry clothes. I'll put it in the garage."

"Right," she said drily, "Can't let the neighbors see."

"Fuck the neighbors," Jack growled.

She walked down the hall still shivering. Jack grabbed his heavy rain jacket from the hall closet and ran out to put the bike away. He took time to dry it off with some shop towels.

When he got back to the house he hung the jacket over a dining room chair. Sam was coming down the hall tying a pair of his sweat pants tight enough so they wouldn't fall down and wearing one of his faded plaid flannel shirts. Her feet were bare.

"You need socks," he said.

"I didn't want to be greedy," she answered. Her skin was still the color of fine porcelain and her lips were still blue. The bruising stood out in sharp contrast.

The collar of the flannel shirt was open enough for him to make out the impression of fingermarks on her creamy, smooth throat.

"Go sit by the fire," he said.

He came back with a pair of his heavy winter hiking socks. Sam was on the floor in front of the fire, staring at it unseeing. He knelt in front of her, slowly, wondering what had possessed him to move the area rug from its place by the fire. He couldn't stop the grunt of pain. _God, he hated the damp now…._

"Your knees," she started to protest.

"I'll live," he snapped.

He rubbed her frozen feet between his hands for a little bit, massaging the blood back into them.

"Jack, I…"

"Carter!" Jack barked in his old command voice and he watched the old reflex kick in that would make her respond to it with immediate silence.

He hated himself for using it but he was still seething inside; and one glance up into her narrowed eyes and he knew she hated herself for the habitual need to obey.

"Stand down for a minute, Colonel," he said.

"You're going to pick _now _tostart abusing your authority?" she demanded and he realized her teeth weren't chattering and the color was coming back into her face.

"Yes," he said, simply. He put the socks on her feet with deliberate care, to atone for his voice. He sat back on his heels and regarded her for a moment. Then he stood and he again he couldn't keep back the grunt of pain. He pulled a blanket out of the trunk by the window and put it around her.

"Stay there."

Sam didn't say 'yes' because she wasn't sure she could keep from saying 'sir' after it. So she just nodded.

He vanished for a moment and she heard him go down the hall to the bedroom and then he was rattling around in the kitchen. She heard the microwave beep a few minutes later. When he came back into the living room he was carrying two mugs. He set one down on an end table and held one out for her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Hot chocolate," he answered, roughly, "and it's about burning of my fingers off so take it or wear it."

Jack's attitude put her hackles up, but that was probably his intention and god knew he every reason to be pissed; and so did she.

She took the mug, clutching the blanket tight with one hand and reaching up with the other. She wrapped her fingers around the mug, blew on the steam and resolved not to use it for anything other than warmth. But the smell of the chocolate teased an invitation she couldn't resist, so she took a sip. The liquid sizzled over her tongue and down her throat, exploded inside her chest and stomach, and flamed up her spine. She choked on whatever he had added to the chocolate, then managed a single sputtered word.

"Chocolate?"

He was gazing down at her and she swore that if he so much as twitched a smile she'd kick him where it hurt.

"And a little whiskey," he admitted, "My great grandmother's recipe."

Sam took another sip but more cautiously.

"Your grandmother is my kind of girl," she said.

She drank a little more while he added wood to the fire.

Then he slowly sat down next to her, grimacing as he stretched his legs, rubbing his left knee.

"I didn't realize they were getting that bad," she said, softly.

"I don't seem to realize a lot of things lately," he answered.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she demanded, sitting up a little.

The look from those fathomless dark eyes was sidelong and unreadable.

"Good," he said, "I like you much better riled up than soaked and penitent."

"God _dammit_, Jack," Sam said. She put the mug on the floor, stood up, let the blanket drop. "I'm going home. Fuck you. Fuck this."

The idea of getting up again was not even remotely interesting to him so he reached up and grabbed her wrist.

"Don't go," he said, pleading, not an order. She hesitated, looking down at his hand wrapped almost twice around her wrist. "If you're going to ask, then yes, I will stop you with force if I have to. You're not riding that damned bike in this weather again and you can't have my keys. You can stay here and curse at me all night but you're _not_ leaving."

She sank back down in defeat and let him put the blanket around her again. He was leaning forward and instead of sitting back down and facing the fire, he pulled her against him.

He was more than a little shocked she let him. She seemed cold enough still, conflicted enough and exhausted enough to not care anymore.

"I should have talked to you first," he said.

"Ya think?" Her voice was muffled against his chest.

'"Finish your chocolate while it's still hot," he said.

"Tyrant," she grumbled.

They both stared at the fire for a while and at some point his arm went around her shoulders and she leaned against him.

"I can't live without you," she said, finally.

"I know," he answered, "Same here."

"It's not even like living," she went on.

"I know," he said, again, "But this will all be easier if I'm not in your chain of command anymore."

Sam was quiet for a long time and then she said, "You know I've been offered Area 51?"

"Yep." Of course he knew.

"I decided to take it."

"What?" He almost sat up straighter but didn't really want to.

"I can't do this anymore, Jack. This last time was…bad. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being a soldier. I joined the Air Force to fly. If I can't do that I want to be a scientist again. This is my chance," she paused, drank some more until she had finished it. Then very quietly she said, "We'd at least still be on Earth. We can still see each other. I just don't see a downside."

He turned his head enough to kiss her forehead beside the stitches.

"Maybe we should talk about this in the morning," he said, "There's a spare toothbrush in the medicine cabinet and I only have cinnamon toothpaste but you'll survive. I put an extra blanket on the bed. Go try to get some sleep and we'll tackle all this when we're awake."

She leaned back and looked startled. "You're not coming?"

"I can take the couch."

"It's a love seat," she said, "I've never been sure what possessed you to buy something you can't stretch out on."

"It fit against the wall!"

Sam shook her head slowly. "Jack, look. I'm exhausted. I haven't slept in two days. I'm Gate-lagged and spent several hours being interrogated. I want you. I love you. But right now what I really want is to be close to you, next to you. Can we just go to bed? Together?"

By 'interrogated' he was pretty sure she meant tortured.

"Sure," he said, lightly.

He was never quite sure who helped who stand up. He watched her walk down the hall as if she could barely put one foot in front of the other. All the adrenaline of the mission, and their fight and the drive here in the rain had ebbed away.

Jack finished turning out lights and checking locks and setting the coffee maker for the morning. He could hear her in the bathroom but she was in bed when he finally went to the bedroom. He changed into a t-shirt and a pair of flannel pants he'd slept in for too many winters and slipped in beside her.

Sam moved over to Jack's side and pushed into his arms, pushed her leg between Jack's legs. Jack's body went soft, welcoming her, wrapping around her protectively. He felt the pull of sleep like a form of gravity that defied comprehension. Jack wrapped around her tighter and soon she was sleeping heavily, breathing into his chest. A profound sense of peace and rightness washed through him.

For now, that was enough.

(0)


	31. Chapter 31

Sam woke much earlier than she should have, considering how long she had been without sleep. They were still facing each other, though she vaguely remembered waking at some point in the night sprawled across him with Jack asleep on his back and thought _this is heaven_ just before falling back to sleep.

She knew that if she moved he would wake up. She was a little surprised that opening her eyelids hadn't brought him to instant consciousness. It usually did. Jack woke if fog hit the window.

He was also shockingly, immediately hard. She could feel him lying along the curve of her hip. It wasn't a surprise to her, not after seven years in the field. Jack's morning 'condition' was legendary. She'd lost track of how many times she seen him stand up from a sound sleep with impressively tented khakis, heading for the nearest tree line or the pot of coffee on the campfire without seeming to be aware of it.

She wanted to lie there and just watch him for a while because very soon he would be gone and they wouldn't get a series of mornings like this anymore. She was still torn between wanting to just end it and taking what she could get. She loved being in his arms like this, loved it too much, loved him too much and in ways that sometimes made her want to run. It was difficult for her to admit what he did to her, what he had always done to her. She had hidden behind too many things for too many years running from it.

_Just a few more minutes,_ she thought, _then he'll wake up and this moment will be gone._

He was probably going to want to make love. He usually did in the morning and after what she had been through the thought of Jack, as big and strong as he was, taking control and exercising tenderness at the same time was actually an incredible turn on. She'd learning that Jack really got off on rough, hard sex and wondered if that was true of all strong, virile men who'd spent a lot of time in rough, hard circumstances. But he responded profoundly to gentleness and teasing and he could be incredibly playful and gentle.

And mostly he had never seemed to care what they did as long as he was with her.

But that wasn't going to happen this morning. He'd seen her face. She'd made no attempt to cover it in her haste to get out from under the mountain. He hadn't seen the tape around her ribs holding two of them together or the multiple bruises hidden by her clothing.

He was going to have a fit but there wasn't anything left for him to do. Teal'c had taken care of that.

Suddenly she wanted him awake. She needed their normal routine. Sam shifted, eased closer, nudged against him and made a sleepy, muzzy sounding noise.

He was awake instantly.

"Is that the rain?" he asked, honing in immediately on the noise pounding on the roof.

"Yeah," she answered, "It's a deluge out there from the sound of it."

"You want coffee? Toast?" he asked.

"Yeah." He knew her much too well.

Jack got up, disappeared into the bathroom for a moment and then left the room. Sam rolled over slowly once he was gone because she hurt like a train wreck and she didn't want him to see. She limped to the bathroom with joints protesting like rusted metal, washed up, found some mouthwash that was blessedly green and figured she must have left it here at some point. Her hair looked like a porcupine had crawled on top of her head and died there. She walked slowly into the bedroom, found a comb on top of his dresser and tugged it through her hair until it had some semblance of normal.

She usually joined him in the kitchen but right now all she wanted was the bed. She crawled back in gratefully and sighed. It was still warm and still smelled like Jack.

Moments later he came back in with a tray, two cups of coffee and a plate of toast. She sat up, wincing painfully, took the cup of coffee from him with two hands and let him arrange some pillows behind her.

"How bad are you hurt?" he asked.

She tried to shrug. "Two broken ribs, other bruises. It was a primitive culture so nothing that won't heal."

"How did you get permission to leave the Base?"he demanded.

"I said Daniel would drive me if I asked him," she answered, "So they signed me out; and then I just didn't ask Daniel."

Jack regarded her for a moment and then swore under his breath before heading into the bathroom. He was carrying a prescription pill bottle when he returned.

"What's that?" she asked, suspiciously.

"Vicodin. I'm supposed to take them for my knee but I don't."

"Why not?"

Jack put one in his hand, gave it to her and she swallowed it with her next sip of coffee.

"They make me stupid."

"Were you taking them when you decided not to talk to me about moving to DC?"

"Will it get me off the hook if I say yes?"

She looked at him for a long time and then reached for the toast with butter and strawberry jam that he had made just the way she liked it.

"It's all over isn't it?" she said, finally.

Some of the color washed out under his tan. "Are you going to start that again?"

"No, not _that_," she said, "I mean SG1, the way it always was. You, me, Teal'c and Daniel. Teal'c wants to go to help the Free Jaffa Nation. Daniel wants to go to Atlantis and you can't really argue that he'd be more useful there right now. You want to take Hammond's place in DC and you really have put off your knee surgery as long as you can."

He moved onto the bed beside her.

"We can debrief right here if you want," he said. "I checked the email and Daniel already sent me his report."

Sam nodded. Daniel had been working on it when she left. It was typical of him. When he was upset he needed to get it out of his system quickly, either by talking or writing.

"Daniel was right in his assessment of the MALP footage," she began, "It was very much an East African culture, dying out. We weren't there for even a few minutes; Daniel had just started recording the ruins, when we were approached by two men in native garb, unarmed. Daniel talked to them and they said they would take us to their village. We had gone about a hundred yards when we were attacked from behind and knocked out. I came to when they threw a bucket of water on me. I was tied between two stakes in the middle of a circle of stakes. Teal'c and Daniel were tied to single stakes with their arms behind them and the stake against their backs. They were both dripping so I assume they got the same bucket of water treatment. We were also surrounded by more ruins. Daniel's glasses were gone so I knew he wasn't going to be able to read anything on them and wasn't sure that would help anyway."

She paused to get her emotional control in order.

"There were six men with us now and they started demanding answers to where their god had gone and what we had done to him. I'm not sure we ever had anything to do with destroying an East African Goa'uld and I was really hoping that if we had Daniel wouldn't pick now to start mouthing off about it. They directed the questions at Teal'c and Daniel and when they weren't happy with the answers…" She stopped and took a shaky breath, "when they weren't happy they took it out on me."

A muscle twitched in Jack's jaw and his eyes were fierce.

"That went on for probably less time than I think it did and then suddenly I realized that Daniel was talking really fast and they were all watching him and I think he'd gotten some signal from Teal'c because a lot of what he was saying wasn't true or didn't make sense. I could see Teal'c arms flexing and I knew he was trying to fray the rope that were holding him. I'm not sure when he got free. I think I passed out again at one point – they hit me a few more times while Daniel was talking - because the next thing I knew he had not only broken the ropes but shimmied the post out of the ground…."

Sam broke off again and stared at a point on the bedspread that she didn't seem to really be seeing.

"Ya know, I know he's a warrior and I've been out there with him but….sometimes it's just a little shocking. He…killed all of them, some with the post as a weapon – either as a club or with the end that had been sharpened like a stake – or his bare hands. Then he untied us, got our gear from where it had been piled up and they got me back to the Gate and we got out of there."

Jack opened his mouth to say everything he should have said to her in the last eight years and discovered there was so much of it that it clogged in the back of his throat. The look he gave her was sad and tender.

"Anything else?" he asked, after clearing his throat.

"If I think of anything I can put it in the written report," she said.

Jack reached for her, took the mug out of her hands and pushed the tray away and then scooted forward and wrapped his arms around her. Sam made a helpless, choked noise that could have been _oh god_. He nuzzled her bruised face gently and pressed, kissed and she kissed back, hungrily. Her mouth was warm, wet, coffee-flavored and responsive. Jack kissed her deeply, searching and sliding with his tongue, stroking. Then he dragged his mouth around to her ear, cradling the wounded whole of her, and said,

"I love you, no matter where I am. I'm all in here, and we'll do whatever you want. Just tell me. Okay?"

A surge of relief that seemed to melt Sam, as if she had just surrendered to Jack, pressed up against every muscle in his body to feel the power in him, the size of him. She wanted to press hard but couldn't.

She made do with resting her uninjured cheek against his chest and saying,

"Okay."

(0)


	32. Chapter 32

"In reality, some orbital ranges in a binary system are impossible for dynamical reasons. The planet would be expelled from its orbit relatively quickly, being either ejected from the system altogether or transferred to a more inner or outer orbital range," Sam was saying.

"So what you're saying is that Tatooine can't exist?" Jack asked.

He was balancing a bag of groceries on one hip and trying to get the key into the cabin door at the same time. His sunglasses were sliding down his nose. Sam was standing beside him with several plastic groceries bags in her hands and her leather duffle bag slung over her shoulder. She looked gorgeous – tight jeans, beige cable knit turtle neck sweater hugging her the way he wanted to, molded to her the way he wanted to be.

"Is that really all you got out of that?"

She had been blissfully extolling the latest SGC findings on binary star systems all the way from the airport to the cabin, hardly even stopping when they stopped at Jack's favorite diner for lunch. He had listened, or appeared to be listening and he knew she had long ago stopped being surprised that he understood and appreciated her work. Not all of it, and not everything she said, but he asked the right questions and made enough comments that he had given himself away.

Not that he thought she had really ever been fooled.

But he still couldn't resist the occasional gibe intended to make her smile.

Jack gave her the most innocent expression he could manage as he kicked the door open with his foot.

"You're the one who made me watch Star Wars," he said, "So now inquiring minds want to know."

She followed him into the cabin's tiny kitchen and dropped the bags onto the rough-hewn table in its center.

"Well I've run simulations that show the presence of a binary companion can actually improve the rate of planet formation within stable orbital zones by "stirring up" the protoplanetary disk, increasing the accretion rate of the protoplanets," she said.

Jack turned and looked at her.

"So the answer is yes?" he said, trying to sound attentive and professional and not helplessly turned on.

He loved goading her a little, teasing her; and mostly he loved the serious look on her face when she talked about astrophysics and the bright light in those stunning eyes. He loved the little wrinkle of concentration above her eyebrows, the way she lit up when she had worked through an idea. He had been hyper-aware of her on the plane, close enough to touch, to feel her breathing. She had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder for a while.

All the way there in the rented truck he had wanted to pull over into a secluded dirt road and drag her into the back seat like a love-struck teenager.

She had seemed unaffected by the fact that they were alone and in each other's personal space. Apparently those things were unimportant when there was science to discuss.

Sam stopped taking things out of the bags that needed to go immediately into the fridge and said,

"For you the answer is always yes."

Jack started to say something and his voice faltered. He wanted to say something but the only thing in his brain is how sexy she was when she said things like "increasing the accretion rate of the protoplanets."

A little desperately he looked away from the magnetic pull of her eyes and found himself staring at her mouth instead, which didn't help at all. He was instantly overcome with the memory of kissing her. They had spent one night together and the Fates had conspired against them ever since. He tore his gaze away and swallowed and the next thing he knew she was standing in front of him.

She stood up on tiptoe and kissed him very lightly.

"I'm saying yes," Sam said, "Daniel and Teal'c won't be here until late tomorrow morning. We have all night. If you're going to say no, or tell me you've changed your mind about us, do it now. Do it now and we'll talk about binary star systems all night or hockey or we can watch the whole Die Hard trilogy again. But don't make me wait."

Her remarkable eyes were searching his face so Jack indulged in the simple luxury of looking back. Her features were more familiar to him than anyone else's, even his own; though he didn't know how. For eight years he had only allowed quick glances, sidelong if they were standing beside each other; looking down quickly at briefing room notes and doodling in the margins to keep from looking straight at her. He could remember each and every time he had looked her in the eyes, every confrontation, every moment they had danced around the truth.

Sam's gaze was unwavering; her head was tilted a little, thrown back just slightly, the angle of it saying _come on, this is it, tell me what my future is._ But the pulse in her lovely throat throbbed wildly. Her breathing was slow and shallow. Pupils dilated. Lips parted.

Dark brown eyes open, Jack tipped forward and brushed his lips over hers.

"I'm saying yes," he said, "I'm saying I haven't changed my mind and I never will."

Sam's ice blue eyes slid closed on a deep groan, her lashes a dark crescent smudge on her pale skin.

Jack gasped and kissed her again, lingering this time. "Yes," he said, becoming more insistent, coaxing her mouth open.

"Yes," he said, against her top lip, pulled on her bottom lip until it stayed open, passive, breathing hard into his mouth, whimpering.

"Yes, yes, yes," he said, kissing just the corners of her mouth, tipping her chin up, nipping, kissing. He pushed tilted her head up while covering her mouth with his and pressed her back against the table.

It was the most she had heard Jack O'Neill say on the subject. Ever. It was the most she had ever heard him say while seducing her. Ever.

When he let her up for air she was still face to face with him, foreheads brushing, lips still seeking touch.

"The ice cream will melt," she said.

He smiled, rubbed his nose against hers. "Can't have that. The closest store is a forty mile round trip."

"Unless we have Daniel and Teal'c go get more," she suggested. "Give us some time alone tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh I _like_ the way you think," his voice was somewhere between a purr and a growl.

"But the beer is getting warm," Sam pointed out.

Jack found her throat, licked, kissed and then bit down gently and sucked.

"It'll keep," he murmured.

A low, deep chuckle bubbled up from her. Her fingers tangled in his hair and held him there.

"You really _are_ in love," she commented.

"In love with you? Damn straight."

Up to this point the only thing that had been touching was their lips. A heavy, electric couple of centimeters had separated their bodies. Now Jack's hand snaked around to her lower back. His fingers dug into the cluster of nerves at the base of her spine as she surged forward to meet him halfway. Sam came into his arms, fitted against his body as though she had been shaped just for that purpose, lock and key, two pieces from different puzzles slotting into each other. Long legs in tight jeans twined around his. She brought one knee up and hooked her leg around his thigh, pressing closer. Her arms went around him and it was just as amazing as he remembered. His whole body contracted around her on a rush of desire. He ran one hand over her head, through the ordered chaos of her silky hair, probably more roughly than he meant to, but it sent a shiver running down the length of her tall, curved, lovely body.

Too long since the last night they had managed to spend together and they could have it again, now, here, in the shelter of the Minnesota cabin where they would still be alone until sometime tomorrow afternoon.

"Jack," she said.

"Hmmm?" he asked, inhaling her clean, feminine scent into his lungs.

"I really want that ice cream," she said.

Several of Jack's brain cells managed to come together and focus on what she was saying. He leaned back, looked into her wide, sea-blue eyes and almost lost the connection again just because of how close they were.

"_Now_?" He asked.

"No, not right _now_," she said with soft laughter in her voice. "But sooner or later, after those steaks on the grill you promised me maybe."

She untangled from him and he let her go with reluctance. They unpacked grocery bags in silence broken only by intimate touches: a lingering caress down her arm with the back of his hand, her fingers drifting down his spine as he bent over to put the beer on the bottom shelf of the fridge and then gliding over the curve of his strong, fleshy glutes. Jack reached around and hugged her waist at one point, sliding his palm up to cover her breast, thumbed lightly across the tip while teasing her ear with his tongue.

Sam was on fire and trying not to pant by the time they finished the groceries. This was what she had wanted for so long. This was how Jack O'Neill made loved, how he told he loved her. Sam had wanted to be the one that Jack loved – the one he made love to - for so long that now, being it, finally, for real, filled her with a deep burning desire and a sweet, astonishing ache in her heart. By the time they had crushed the last bag and closed the last cabinet door, she was on fire for him.

Sam turned and grasped a handful of Jack's flannel shirt and dragged him towards her, tilting her head up and meeting him halfway as his mouth came down on hers. Sam squirmed against him, eagerly, making helpless whimpering noises into the deep wet pressure of his mouth, the glide of Jack's tongue. She reached for the crotch of his jeans and found him rigid, the length of his erection pushing against the zipper.

"I want you so much," she murmured, kissing and biting and groaning, "I want you so much I can't _see_ straight."

The next thing she knew she was pressed up against the rough wooden table with Jack kneeing her legs apart and draping his big, rangy body over hers. He had one hand under her sweater, seeking, while he gathered her up and aligned their bodies and thrust against her through their jeans. Sam melted into him, locked her legs around his hips and started dragging his shirt out of his waist band.

As out of his mind with lust and love as he was, Jack really didn't want their next wild session of lovemaking to be on the table. He picked her up, still plundering her mouth. Sam kept her legs around him, hung onto his shoulders and let him carry her out of the kitchen in the direction of the bedroom.

Jack got as far as the couch in front of the fireplace before his protesting knees gave out. He turned and sank onto the couch, pulling her down on top of him. Sam sat up, straddling him but slid down to perch on his thighs so she could start opening his shirt. Jack rested his hands on her hips and tried to catch his breath. He rose up slightly, arching into her touch. A few more seconds and she had his shirt undone, pushing it away, as far off his shoulders as she could get it. Finding nothing but bare skin underneath she ran her palms over his chest, thumbed over nipples that pricked instantly to a point. She bent and sucked softly on his throat and Jack's hands went to his belt buckle and started to work at the fastening.

"Hey," she said, teasingly, "I wanted to do that."

"Maybe I haven't been clear enough about how much I want this," Jack answered but he put his hands went back to her hips and lay still.

Her hot gaze swept him: laying back, half naked, skin flushed, crotch bulging.

"Umm, no," Sam said, stroking him through his jeans, grinning a little, face nearly pink, eyes dilated to blue-ringed black, "I get that."

He let her finish his belt and the snap on his jeans. Then she had to push against his erection to relieve some of the pressure on the zipper before she could get it down. Jack threw his head back, closed his eyes and groaned.

Jack hooked his thumbs into two waistbands and pushed out of his clothes, toeing off his sneakers to get them out of the way so he could finish undressing. He did it by memory alone. His gaze was riveted on Sam as she pulled her sweater over her head and then moved briefly off his lap to shed her own shoes and socks and jeans.

She was, quite literally, breathtaking. The sight and scent of her was intoxicating.

"God. _Sam_."

On a triumphant, possessive surge he didn't let her climb back onto his lap, but pushed her back onto the big puffy couch.

"I thought you said this place had 2 bedrooms?" Her voice was low and sultry.

"Kind of far," he said as his mouth traveled from her neck to her collar bone to her breast. His fingers trawled slowly in circles around the other breast, feeling her pounding heart under his fingertips.

Sam couldn't say anything for a moment, so lost in the sensual tenderness of his attention and the incredible realization that this was _real._

"Jack," she laughed softly, "The whole cabin is smaller than your garage!... _Ah…..nnnh…..ohmygod…."_

She had been on a low steady burn since they had first pulled up in the driveway. The press of skin on skin, the deep, hot wet feeling of his mouth on her body, ignited now into a flash fire. She reached down and wrapped her fingers around his cock, pulled it away from his body a little, gave him a warm and gentle caress of her thumb over the soft, dripping head before starting an insistent stroking motion.

Jack made a desperate choking sound and clawed the cushion on the back of the couch. He let her continue stroking him for a long time, feeling his own pulse beating in her palm.

"_Sam….."_

His arms went around her; one high, along her shoulder blades, lifting her up to crush her against his chest. The other was low, under her hips, against her lower back, lifting her up.

Sam arched eagerly, untangled her legs from his and helped guide him.

"Come on, Jack," she said, "_Please."_

A low groan vibrated through him as he pushed in, all the way, and finally stopped, panting, buried deep. She closed her eyes and groaned in response, digging her nails into his forearms.

He felt huge, perfect.

Then he began to move and Sam's vision whited out. She wrapped her legs around his waist, the soles of her feet resting on the strong muscles at the back of his thighs. He drew back, almost all the way, painstakingly slow.

"_Ah, Sam_," he whispered, closing his eyes, and drove back in. Hard, hot.

It felt incredible: a release of tension that had existed for years, the sensation of Jack moving inside her with power and authority. His face was the image of concentration, sheened in sweat, eyes shut tight. His powerful arms held her still, kept her from being able to move at all.

Jack made a sudden sharp sound that came from his chest and she felt a heavy, warning throb inside. Then Jack stopped. He buried his face in the join of her neck and shoulder and breathed in slow pants for a moment. She was just about to ask him what was wrong when he started moving again.

Slow, shallow, careful thrusts, barely moving and it was still too much. It pushed her up and over the edge. Her senses overloaded and Sam cried out his name as the cascade began. He dove forward in one long push and sent her over the edge.

Implosion, roaring through her body, everything convulsing as she rode it out, clinging to him for dear life and sobbing.

His movements changed to fast and furious until he came with ballistic force, curling over, slamming his feet against the arm of the couch.

It lasted an eternity. Jack went boneless on top of her, trying to support his weight on his elbows, still draining into her body in shallow pulses as she melted into the couch and contracted around him in helpless aftershocks.

Floating on an impossible high, Jack felt an ache of tenderness as well as a victorious glow of pride that was wholly male.

After a long while, Sam murmured his name. Jack lifted off, ran his fingers through her tousled hair and fell in slow motion off the couch onto the floor. Sam rolled onto her side and reached down to tease her fingers through the dark, wiry hair on his chest. She felt softly exhilarated, weightless, sated.

He cracked his eyes open finally and found her smiling down at him.

"That was…...," she began and then ran out of words.

"Just say you love me," Jack said, softly and then he hesitated, "unless you just did."

"With all my heart," Sam answered.

(0)


	33. Chapter 33

**No plot, girl bonding at the cabin, because I really want Sam to have a girl friend to share things with.**

**(0)**

"Scarface, Die Hard, all three, Easy Rider, Animal House, First Blood," Jillian recited the titles from the DVDs on the shelf and sighed, "Does Jack own anything that isn't a 'guy' movie?"

"He's such a guy sometimes. You should see what's in the box under the bed," Sam commented.

Jillian leaned back on her heels and looked up at her. "Under the bed Daniel and I are using?"

Sam thought for a moment. "Yeah, that one."

Jillian muttered something under her breath that wasn't in English. "How do you know what's in the box under the bed?"

Sam shrugged and sat down on the floor in front of her. "His extra fishing gear is under there too. He sent me to get it." She pulled down some boxes to check the titles in the back. "There's the whole Indiana Jones trilogy. It's not like it would be hard to look at Harrison Ford for a few hours."

"No," Jillian said, quietly, "The archaeology in that one drives Daniel nuts."

"It's a movie!" Sam protested.

"Well I know that and you know that, but Daniel….."

They were quiet for a little bit, searching for something everyone would like amidst a collection that looked like the Top 101 Movies for Men.

"So," Jillian said, in an attempt at a conversational tone but Sam could tell she had been thinking about this for a while, "What's going on with you lately?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"You've been really happy lately, especially this last week."

"I thought you and Daniel _wanted_ me to be happy."

"We do. It's just…. You've been through a lot and I know you were …depressed about it for a while. Sam, it was only like ten days ago you were sitting in my living room crying on Daniel's shoulder after _finally_ telling us you broke up with Pete – and I still don't understand why it took you almost two weeks to tell us that-"

"Come on, Jillian, there was my Dad's funeral and everything else-"

"I know. I'm not saying that. I know you've been through a lot, I just said that. But now, it's like something changed. If I didn't know better I'd think you were seeing someone."

In a combat situation, Sam's expression never changed from steely concentration. On the firing range she barely blinked. But in private conversation Jillian could read her like a book in any one of eighteen languages.

So when Sam broke eye contact and ducked her head and seemed really interested in a VHS copy of Caddyshack, Jillian _knew_ something was up.

"You _are _seeing someone," she said, "Come on. Give. Who is it?"

"I really can't tell you, not right now," Sam said, picking at the frayed edge of the cardboard box, eyes on the hardwood floor.

"Well why not -," Jillian began and then instantly broke off, eyes going wide, "It's Jack, isn't it? Did you and Jack…..? Have you…..?"

"Jill!" Sam hissed.

"Oh my god it _is_. You _did,"_ Jillian breathed. Then her voice got louder, "Sam Carter, when did this happen and _why_ didn't you _tell _me?"

Sam shot to her feet, grabbing Jillian by the arm and hauling her up in the process. She put one hand in the middle of Jill's shoulder blades and practically shoved her into the small bedroom, slamming the door behind them and turning the lock.

Sam turned and glared at her, hands on her hips.

"You can _not_ tell anyone," she said.

"Sam!"

"SHHH! Keep your voice down!"

"Not even Daniel?"

"Jeezus, Jill! _Especially_ not Daniel."

"Why not?" Then Jillian took a breath, "Okay, wait. Back up. When did this start?"

"A few days after Dad's funeral. Jack showed up at the house, almost broke down the door…"

"Really?" Jillian seemed rather enchanted by the idea.

Sam glared at her again. "Yes, really."

"Then what?"

"He wanted to know if he was the reason I broke up with Pete and I said yes, because, well, he kind of was."

"And then?"

Sam threw up her hands in frustration and started pacing the room. "Then things got out of control and crazy and wild….. and," she stopped, raked her fingers through her hair and shook her head with a rueful smile, "and pretty damned perfect."

Jillian laughed and clapped her hands like a schoolgirl. "Oh my god, this is excellent!" She stopped Sam from pacing by grabbing her in a gleeful hug. "Why can't I tell Daniel?"

"He's a member of my team! I'm still in Jack's chain of command until he gets his retirement pushed through. I can't make Daniel – or Teal'c – complicit in this. It's bad enough you figured it out."

"Well, it's not like I'm going to tell anyone, though I do wish I could tell Daniel."

"Look, if I know Daniel, he'll figure it out himself."

"Probably," Jillian agreed.

She pushed Sam towards the bed, where they sat down cross-legged in the middle of the worn quilt.

"So," Jillian said, leaning forward.

"So?"

"Tell me what it's like."

"Are you asking me what it's like to be in bed with Jack O'Neill?"

"Well I don't need details. I mean you get embarrassed when I talk about Daniel –"

"Yeah and _you _get embarrassed when Annie talks about Scotty –"

"Not that embarrassed. I've been going off world with three guys for eight years. So have you. Our fourth mission out we had to dive into a lake to escape a swarm of giant killer bees. Four days into an eight day mission, miles from the Star Gate and the Colonel decides we should dry out. That's when they found out I don't exactly wear the standard issue undergarments under the camo and I found out way more about all of them than I ever wanted to know."

"What did you have on?"

"I think it was red lace."

"Oh my god…."

"I know you know more about the guys you went off world with than you'd ever tell," Jillian said.

"Well, yeah," Sam admitted, "I guess every team does, though some of it gets around, especially after joint missions. Your husband's 'morning condition' is pretty legendary."

"You're not telling me anything I don't know."

"Jillian!"

"Well you brought it up!"

Then they both giggled and choked back laughter at the unintentional pun.

"If we had some chocolate in here it would be excellent," Jillian observed.

Sam got up, pulled open a top dresser drawer and tossed Jill a bag of Hershey miniatures.

"Oh you're kidding," Jillian said, happily, ripping it open and reached for a Krackle bar.

"I never kid about chocolate," Sam said, joining her once again in the middle of the bed.

"Okay, so tell me," Jillian said, insistently, "I'm dying here. What's it like to be together finally? You said it was perfect?"

Sam got the most dreamy look on her face, her gaze turned inward.

"Yeah," she breathed, "It's pretty damned near perfect, better than any fantasy I ever had."

"God, Sam, I'm so happy for you. I really am."

There was a sudden knocking on the door.

"Jill? Sam? Are you in there?" Daniel's voice called through the heavy wooden door.

"Yes!" They called in unison.

"Yes, everything is fine!" Jillian called back, "We're having some girl time. In case you hadn't noticed there's a lot of testosterone in the cabin."

"No, I hadn't noticed," Daniel admitted, still sounding anxious.

"You want proof, look at the selection of movies!" Sam suggested.

She and Jillian nearly collapsed in a fit of giggles again.

They could hear something that sounded like firewood hitting the floor and then Jack's voice.

"Did you find them?"

"Yes," Daniel answered, still standing on the other side of the bedroom door.

"They're both in there?" Jack asked.

"Yes," Daniel said again.

"Be afraid," Jack intoned.

Sam looked at Jillian and rolled her eyes.

"We'll be out in a little while," Jillian said, "Call us when the steaks are ready."

"Okay," Daniel said, reluctantly. A moment later they heard his footsteps heading for the front door.

"You're breaking his heart," Sam commented.

"He'll be fine," Jillian said, "It's not like we're that far apart. But jeez Sam, you must just hate having us all here. If you want I can tell him I'm not feeling well and want to go home. We can probably talk Teal'c into going too-"

"No!" Sam said, eyes widening. "No, please. Not only don't I want you to scare Daniel like that but I really do want everyone here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Sam said, "Everything is going to change. Jack is going to retire and I'm honestly not sure what that means for me, for my career, or where it will eventually take us. Teal'c is going to return to the Jaffa nation and he needs to do that. Daniel won't quit talking about Atlantis and if he goes you will too. I wanted this time with all of you, before that happens."

"Okay," Jillian said.

Sam reached for the bag of miniatures.

"Give me that, before you eat all the Krackle bars," she said.

Jillian was quiet for a moment and then she said, "I can't even tell Daniel?"

"Jillian!"

"Okay, okay!"

(0) 


	34. Chapter 34

**I've written this scene for both the POV of Jack and of Sam and couldn't decide which I liked better. So I'm posting them both. First up is Jack. Still at the cabin after Moebius.**

**(0)**

Jack had a reputation, well deserved, for taking risks. He had spent his entire life seeming to take risks. Secrets were something he was used to keeping.

But what always looked like risks to the outside world were always calculated actions, taken after as much consideration as he could give them, with contingency plans and exit strategies.

Exit strategy was the most important, or so he had been trying to drum into Daniel's thick skull for the last eight years (without success.)

But _this _….This thing with Sam. It was a risk. The biggest one he had ever taken. No Plan B, no fallback, and most certainly no exit.

They made this work or they failed on a grand scale.

At the moment he wasn't actually thinking of any of that. He was thinking that he hadn't had his arms around her since the rest of the team had arrived early that afternoon.

They were alone in the cabin with Daniel and Jillian off in the row boat somewhere on the pond and Teal'c energetically chopping wood in the cool of the evening. Sam was washing dishes, holding up her end of the deal after the guys had handled the grill and the chopping of the salads, table setting and general preparation and Jillian had tackled the potato salad and dessert.

Sam was wearing a white sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a tight pair of jeans. She was currently off on a pretty rant about some show she'd seen on the Discovery Channel about the 100 Greatest Discoveries and how the hell had some of them made it into the top 10. Apparently she didn't think germ theory and penicillin should have been in the top 10 and they must have only let biology students vote on this thing. She was incensed that the Bernoulli Principle had been ignored entirely.

She had her back to him, which gave him a great view of her long legs and curved hips and delicious derriere – something he had spent eight years trying not to stare at. Her arms were in the sudsy sink and she was working industriously at the pots.

The sun was coming in the window and glinting off her tousled hair and he wasn't really thinking when he walked up behind her and slid his arms slowly around her waist and pressed close to her body in a possessive, familiar hug. He bent his neck just far enough to reach hers with his lips and echo kisses along the soft skin behind her ear.

Sam went completely still, stopped talking, stopping scrubbing the pot in the sink, almost stopped breathing. He nuzzled his face into her hair and said her name in a long, contented sigh.

It was wonderful and domestic and he realized that _this_ was what he had wanted with her. All this time. All he had wanted was to be _home_, like this, with her. They had danced for years around true domestic tranquility, when the team gathered at his house or hers and they had the buffer of Teal'c and Daniel.

That was why he had been asking her all these years to come to the cabin with him. He had lived on Bases all over the world but this state and this place in it were really his home. He had wanted to see if she could belong here too.

And he was happy now because she _liked_ it here. She was relaxed, moving around the cabin as if she had always been here, fitting into it like a comfortable pair of old jeans.

So he molded to her even more closely, clasped his hands one over the other against her waist and pressed his face against her precious head and thought _Christ, this feels exactly like I knew it would and I want to stand here forever._

"So," he said, into her ear, "What would you put in as the number 1 greatest discovery of all time?"

He could feel the shift of muscles in her jaw and cheek as she smiled.

"Bernoulli," she said, instantly.

She started moving again, finishing the pot and rinsing it and her hands under the warm water.

"Oh yeah? What did he do that was so important?" He was murmuring it distractedly, eyes half-closed, breathing in the Sam-scent he adored.

"The theory of fluid dynamics," she answered, putting the pot in the drying rack and using a paper towel on her hands.

"Fluid dynamics?" Jack asked. "Isn't that kind of a strange thing for you to be enamored of?"

Sam turned in his arms and linked her fingers behind his back.

"It led to the theory of flight," she answered.

Jack gazed down into her eyes for a moment.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Good choice."

"Ya think?" she asked, "Without flight we don't have international mass transit, the space program…"

"McDonald's in Russia? Disneyland in Tokyo?"

She frowned at him but couldn't sustain it. She put her forehead against his chest and laughed softly, ruefully, affectionately. When she looked up again with a toss of her tousled hair her eyes were shining.

"Okay so what would you say was the number 1 most important discovery of all time? Beer?"

"I was not going to say beer," he said, definitively, shaking his head.

"Oh really? What _were _you going to say?"

"Was the number 1 most important discovery?"

"Yes."

Jack's head dipped, his mouth sought hers. "You," he said, and then he made it impossible for her to say anything at all.

(0)


	35. Chapter 35

**This is how it went from Sam's POV:**

Sam rolled up the sleeves of her white sweater and pushed them up past her elbows. Then she let the sink fill a little bit and squeezed a delicate swirl of Dawn dishwashing liquid into the water. As the suds rose she went on automatic. She actually liked washing dishes, since it was kind of a mindless task that let her overactive brain go off in other directions. She also liked doing things like this at Jack's house. It was the kind of thing one did at home, and this felt like home.

She knew from being off world with Jack that he would listen to her for hours when the fate of the planet, or of SG1, didn't hang in the balance. She had learned that he cut her off not because he didn't care or wouldn't understand it, but because he trusted her. He knew she could do it and he was content to let the science go unspoken.

So when they were on world and de-stressing and enjoying some blessed downtime together she could give voice to whatever thoughts came into her head. She had also noticed that Jack seemed willing to listen just to hear the sound of her voice and when something was bothering her, she was more than willing to indulge him.

The griping about the Discovery Program wasn't all feigned or automatic, even though she didn't expect much from the channel, not really. Its job was to attract the most viewers not educate the masses about science. But she'd had some hope about a program called the 100 Greatest Discoveries and it had just made her mad – especially the so-called top 10.

So while a pot soaked off to one side of the sink she washed and rinsed the wine glasses and silverware and set them in the drainer she ranted about the list and how ridiculous it was.

"I mean Maxwell is on the list and how many people have even heard of him?" She asked, rhetorically. "And in this century we know that Maxwell's equations aren't even exact laws of the universe, but just a classical approximation to the more accurate and fundamental theory of quantum electrodynamics. So how does that rate him in the Top 10?" She paused to start working on the pot full of dried on sticky starch from the potatoes and then started up again, "Einstein is on the list and sure everyone had heard of him but did E=MC^2 really change our lives? I guess it led to things that changed our lives but Newton had a much greater impact in that sense; and Mendel? Really? Like people didn't know that tall people would have tall children before he came along. Then they listed penicillin and it's important, sure. It has saved a lot of lives in the last 60 years. But it didn't help us understand how the universe works so how does it get up there in the Top 10? Germ theory? Did only biology students vote on this thing? They ignored Bernoulli _entirely_ and that's just insane from any scientific perspective."

Jack had been moving around the kitchen up until then, starting coffee and putting another six pack of beer on the bottom shelf of the fridge. But then he stepped up behind her, slipped his arms around her and shaped his body to hers. The muscles of his forearms contracted to hold her tight and his lips found the sensitive skin behind her ear. For a handful of seconds Sam didn't even register it and she just kept talking. In her mind this was how it had always been – home and at peace, getting an affectionate hug from Jack. In some odd dimension that always ran parallel to the one they inhabited this is what they have always done, how they have always lived.

When Sam finally became aware that they were _really_ doing this, that this was really Jack's body pressed against hers and his arms around her, easy-going, strong yet gentle, possessive and familiar she stopped talking and even moving. She was stilled by how perfectly normal this felt, how perfectly wonderful. They were free now to talk and touch and hold and make love, to sleep safely in the comfort of each other's arms and wake knowing the utter contentment of each other's company.

Then Jack whispered her name and she sank back into the precious solidity of Jack's embrace.

The moment she moved, he molded to her even more closely, clasped his hands one over the other against her waist and pressed his face against her hair.

"So," his voice was a husky whisper in her ear. His question was just enough to prove he had been listening, "What would you put in as the number 1 greatest discovery of all time?"

She smiled.

"Bernoulli," she said, instantly and was then seized with a need to have her arms around him.

She started moving again with purpose, finishing the pot and rinsing it and her hands under the warm water.

"Oh yeah? What did he do that was so important?" He murmured it in the sexy low Jack-bedroom voice she adored.

"The theory of fluid dynamics," she answered, putting the pot in the drying rack and using a paper towel on her hands, shaking with the need to hold him.

"Fluid dynamics?" Jack asked. She could hear the tolerant laughter. "Isn't that kind of a strange thing for you to be enamored of?"

Sam pivoted on her heels so that she didn't break the embrace. She slipped her arms around his waist and linked her fingers behind his back.

"It led to the theory of flight," she answered.

Jack gazed down into her eyes for a moment and she got lost in liquid darkness.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Good choice."

"Ya think?" she asked, "Without flight we don't have international mass transit, the space program…"

"McDonald's in Russia? Disneyland in Tokyo?"

Sam tried to frown at his irreverent humor, scold him with her eyes. But it was useless. It was one of the things she loved the most about him. In helpless surrender, she put her forehead against his chest and laughed softly, ruefully, affectionately. When she looked up again, tossing her head to get her hair out of her eyes he was gazing back at her with absolute adoration.

"Okay," she challenged, "So what would you say was the number 1 most important discovery of all time? Beer?"

"I was not going to say beer," he said, definitively, shaking his head.

"Oh really? What were you going to say?"

"Was the number 1 most important discovery?"

"Yes."

Jack's head dipped, his mouth sought hers. "You," he said, and then he made it impossible for her to say anything at all.

(0)


	36. Chapter 36

**Moonlight and Steel runs parallel to Daniel's story in Sunshine and Shadow. Whatever happens here happens there and vice versa and sometimes gets cross posted. It also means that sometimes the story of Daniel and Jillian winds up here. This is a continuation of the time at the cabin after Moebius. Stick with this chapter through the opening. It really is about Jack and Sam.**

**(0)**

Jillian stood by and watched Daniel haul the rowboat back up onto dry land. He was wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt that was probably one of his uniform shirts. But it left his arms bare. Muscles rippled. His skin glowed and Jillian didn't have any trouble imagining a marble god come to life, lit from within.

An Ascended god, fallen now, but still worshipped.

He stowed the oars, brushed his hands on his jeans and then turned holding out one hand to her. It was his clear intent to go back into the cabin. When she hesitated he gave her a quizzical look from behind his glasses.

"What?"

Jillian could see Teal'c just on the other side of the property. The rhythmic thwack of the axe into the firewood was echoing in the pines.

Since she and Daniel were still outside too that meant Jack and Sam were alone in the cabin. She took Daniel's offered hand between both of hers and tugged him towards her.

"We don't have to go back in yet, do we?" she asked.

Daniel's eyes narrowed.

"Why?"

"Because we're alone out here. When we go back inside there will be movies and snacks and …. Out here is where we were married."

From the look in his stunning blue eyes Daniel's heart had just melted.

"Okay," he said.

She favored him with the kind of smile that took his breath away and led him over to the dock. Once there they sat down side by side with their legs hanging over the edge and his arm around her. Somewhere on the lake a loon called its haunting song. Mist had begun to rise as the air above the sun-warmed water began to cool.

"How do you feel?" He asked.

Jillian's daily bout of nausea had been thrown off by the time difference between Colorado and Minnesota, hitting her later than usual.

"I'm fine now. It doesn't last longer than an hour or so. You know that."

"Tired?"

"Yes, but not in a way I have to do anything about for a while."

Daniel turned and nuzzled into her hair for a moment. His breath was warm in the cooling evening air. The kiss he pressed against her head was tender.

"Are you happy?"

Jillian smiled and looked down at the water. "Yes, I am. Aren't you?"

"Than I have ever been in my life," Daniel answered.

"You were worried about bringing me this far from civilization," Jillian guessed.

"I was," he admitted. Jillian was eight weeks into her first pregnancy and Daniel had never felt so overprotective in his life.

"What changed your mind?"

"Jack has Prometheus on speed dial."

"What?"

"Ready to beam us out of here at the first sign of trouble."

"Daniel!"

She tilted her head back enough to look at him and found him gazing back with fierce sincerity.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you or to the baby," he said in simple finality. The muscles in his arm flexed tightly as he held her closer.

"Can he do that?"

Daniel shrugged. "He's Jack O'Neill."

Jillian bit back tears and hid her face against the hollow of his shoulder for a moment. She had been unusually emotional lately. Daniel's fierce devotion touched something primal inside her. But it didn't normally make her cry.

"So," Daniel began, in a way that Jillian knew he hoped sounded casual, "What were you and Sam talking about earlier?" he asked.

"Why?" She asked in return, tossing her head and looking up him once again dry-eyed. "Can't we just have some girl time without it becoming an issue?"

"Sam is keeping something from me," Daniel answered bluntly. "I hoped that maybe she would tell you."

"What makes you think she's keeping something from you?"

Daniel shrugged. "Eight years in the field, having to read each other's expressions, body language, just to stay alive, to know when someone is hurt and not admitting it. Come on, Jillian. If Scotty or Mal or Rusty was keeping something from you wouldn't you know it."

Jillian bit down on her lip. Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't. Daniel, with his otherworldly empathic sense, had clearly picked up something from Sam.

She wondered if he had been picking anything up from Jack.

"Sam's got something going on that she doesn't want us to know about," Daniel said, certainly, "I think it's another guy; and I just don't understand why she wouldn't just tell us…."

He broke off. His eyes narrowed shrewdly. Jillian bit down on her lip because she knew she had just inadvertently given something away. She was married to a master communicator and he could read her just as easily he could thirty different languages. "She _did_ tell you and it _is _a new guy."

Unable to lie to Daniel, about anything, she answered slowly, "Yes. But you can't say anything to her. She asked me not to tell you."

Daniel frowned.

"Why? Why wouldn't she want us to know? She told you."

"No, actually I figured it out and she didn't try to deny it."

"How did you figure it out?"

"She's just been so happy lately – Daniel! What?"

Daniel was suddenly sitting up, instantly alert. He shifted on the dock so that he was looking at her more directly.

"Is it _Jack_?" He demanded.

"Daniel," she began warningly.

"It _is. _I'm right aren't I?" The stuttering started. Daniel on a trail to truth or knowledge with his brain running far ahead of his ability to speak, "H-h-h-he's been hiding something too. I-I-I-I _know _he has. Jillian! Did she and Jack finally…."

"Daniel! For heaven's sake keep your voice down!"

Daniel laughed and gave her a tight, spontaneous hug.

"So I _am_ right?"

"You _can't_ say anything. She's trying to protect you. So is Jack. Besides, she will _kill_ me."

"Jack," Daniel said, shaking his head, "I knew _she_ was keeping something from me but he never gave anything away at all."

"He was Special Forces, Daniel. You don't even hear him coming unless he wants you to."

Daniel stared out into the amber waters of the lake, flashing back to the conversation he'd had with Jack that had led to all of them being here in the first place.

"_You want the rest of us there as a buffer between you and Sam," Daniel had challenged him, after finding out Jack had asked Sam first and she'd said yes._

"_No," Jack had said, then taken a long breath, "Look, Daniel, we're all going to scatter to the four winds in a few months. Is some downtime at the cabin really too much to ask?"_

_Daniel had considered him for a long time._

"_Will I have to fish?" he'd asked._

"_Only if you want to….."_

He had been translating Jack O'Neill for nearly a decade. He was good at it. He should have seen something.

Then something occurred to Daniel.

"Jillian," he said, turning to her again, "That's why you wanted to go out in the boat and to stay out here, isn't it? To give them time alone in the cabin?"

"It's not the only reason," Jillian defended, "We _did_ get married on this very spot and I do love being here with you. It wasn't just to give them time alone."

Daniel leaned in, kissed her, breathed against her for a moment.

"God, I can't believe this finally happened and we can't say anything. Wait! Is that why Teal'c is chopping firewood when there's a whole stack of it on the porch?"

"I don't know, honestly. I don't think he knows and if he does Sam doesn't know it. Daniel, you can't say anything to him. They're trying to protect him too."

"From what? Teal'c isn't military. He isn't even an American! He's leaving for the new Jaffa nation soon. What could they do to him for keeping a secret like that?"

"He isn't US military. That doesn't mean he doesn't respect the rules. Sam said Jack is trying to push through his retirement. It should only be a secret for a little while."

"This is going to get confusing isn't it? Trying to guess who knows and trying to keep Sam and Jack from knowing we know?"

Jillian shook her head. Jack would take one look at Daniel and guess everything.

Daniel got to his feet, pulling her along with him.

"We need to go in, 'alone time' for everyone notwithstanding. The mosquitoes are going to be carrying us away soon."

Jillian nodded. She suspected Daniel was also getting cold. Hand in hand they walked back to the cabin, joining up with Teal'c who was heading in the same direction.

They made maybe just a little too much noise coming in the door.

Sam was finishing the dishes and Jack was setting a fire. The cabin smelled like coffee and wood smoke. Sam came out of the kitchen rubbing an apple scented lotion into her hands.

Daniel walked over, caught Sam in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet. Sam made a short breathless, startled sound before getting her bearings and putting her arms around his shoulders.

"Daniel! What the hell? Idiot! Put me down!" Sam said.

"What?" Daniel said, putting her back on her feet, "I can't hug my team mate?"

"Not without warning," she said.

Jack stood up, brushing bits of bark and dirt off on his jeans.

"Sneaking up on Carter is a good way to find yourself body slammed onto the hardwood," he commented.

"Is that coffee?" Daniel asked, artfully changing the subject.

He let go of Sam and slipped around her to get to the kitchen. Sam speared Jillian with a look that Jillian returned with wide-eyed innocence. Sam edged over to her.

"What was that for?"

"He's in a really good mood tonight," Jillian answered, "He's happy about…. Everything, really."

Sam frowned but they were interrupted by Teal'c asking.

"What movie are we to watch, O'Neill?"

"Terminator 2, Judgment Day. You haven't seen it," Jack replied as he got the disc out of the box.

Jillian groaned.

"What?" Jack asked.

Daniel returned, coffee cup in hand.

"You want something?" He asked Jill.

"No, I'm fine," she said.

They settled in the corner of the big leather couch. Daniel took a few healthy swallows before putting the cup on the end table. He propped his feet up on the trunk that served as a coffee table and answered Jack as Jillian settled in against him.

"We've got some continuity issues with the Terminator movies."

"It's just a movie, Daniel," Jack said.

"Yes but, think about it for a moment-"

"-Rather not-"

"When Kyle and Sarah sleep together, they conceive John Connor; then we find out in the second movie when the Terminator is destroyed in the first one, the microchip in its skull survives, falls into the hands of a computer company and allows for the creation of Skynet in the first place. Therefore, the only reason either John Connor or the machines exist is because the Terminator went back in time, and the only reason the Terminator went back in time is because the machines and John Connor exist."

"So?" Jack asked.

While they were verbally wrangling, Sam sat down beside Jillian and put her feet up near Daniel's.

"So it makes no sense!"

"It's a movie, Daniel –"

"Oh, and John Connor and the rest of our heroes spend the last act of the second movie trying to prevent said war, meaning John Connor is trying to prevent his own existence, by eliminating the reason for his dad to travel back in time to conceive him-"

Jillian broke in at that point. "-And, if he does prevent his own existence, well, he certainly won't be around to prevent the war thus preventing his existence and –"

"You're as bad as he is, aren't you?" Jack interrupted.

"And if they can travel back in time why keep coming to different times in John Connor's life? Go back and hit Sarah Connor in High School," Sam added. "If you take into consideration the theory of multiverses and other scientific concepts that to some extent explain how time is not linear-"

"_Carter!"_ Jack roared.

Sam clamped her mouth shut abruptly. Daniel looked back and forth between them. He knew what they were doing. They had been doing it for years. Sam used science to goad Jack into an apparent dismissal of science to give him an outlet for his impatience. Daniel did the same thing. They were both safety valves for Jack's temper.

Daniel knew Jack had always gotten to Sam; whether she had been artfully using attitude to stay just this side of military protocol or a steady stream of insubordinate ranting could be seen in her expression or when Jack was trying to tease a smile out of her with his deliberate misunderstanding of the perfectly obvious.

"Scientists," Jack said and Daniel knew he was going for smile.

Sam rolled her eyes and refused to give it to him, though Daniel could see the smile in her eyes and watched it losing the battle in the corners of her mouth.

The spark had always been there between Jack and Sam. If it had finally burst into flame they were doing a very good job hiding it.

Teal'c had settled in the one oversized chair in the room. Jack tossed him the remote and turned to Sam again.

"You want a beer?" he asked.

"Love one," she answered. The look her face said she was trying very hard not to laugh at him.

Jack went to the kitchen. When he came back he handed a bottle to her with the cap already removed. Jack's eyes caught hers for a moment as she reached up to take it. Sam wrapped her hand around the bottle, but Jack didn't let it go right away. They held the moment with the condensation running over both their fingers gazing at each other.

Daniel looked over at them and Jillian sharply pinched the soft skin inside his bicep.

"Ow!" Daniel cried. He glared at his wife and she glared back. He took a quick swallow of coffee.

"What?" Jack asked, letting go of the bottle.

"Coffee's….hot," Daniel answered.

Jack studied him for a moment and Daniel looked back with steely determination. Jack's mouth flattened tight and a brief warning flashed in his dark eyes before going to guileless innocence. An entire conversation went on between them in silence.

Jillian shifted and winced, pulling Daniel's attention back to her instantly.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, "Just a kink in my back."

Daniel frowned at her, knowing what she had just done. He yanked a throw pillow out from behind him and arranged it behind her.

"You really okay, Jillian?" Jack asked.

"Yes, thank you," she said.

Jack looked at her for a moment, ignoring Daniel completely. Then he pushed his knees against Sam's.

"Scoot over," he said.

Sam gave him a blank look.

"I'm not sitting on the floor with these knees," he said.

"Here, Jack," Jillian said." Sam, move over." She rolled over almost onto her side until she was draped onto Daniel, her leg over his, her arm stretched across his abs and her head nestled on his shoulder. The pillow was tucked under her side.

It made enough room for Sam to move over beside her and Jack to squeeze in between Sam and the arm of the couch. He put his arm along the back of the couch, behind Sam. Jillian looked sharply at Daniel and he looked resolutely at the Terminator logo plastered on the big screen TV.

"You wanna hit play, Big Guy?" Jack asked Teal'c.

"Indeed," Teal'c intoned.

As the opening sequence began, Jack asked,

"Are the three scientists going to be quiet now?"

"Maybe," Daniel said.

After a pause, Sam said, "Just don't get me started on the morons who installed the doors in the mental institute cells _backwards_ so the locks can be picked…."

"_Carter!" _Jack snarled again.

"Shutting up now," Sam said.

Glancing at her quickly, Daniel saw the twinkle was back in her eyes.

(0)


	37. Chapter 37

This is another adaptation originally posted in Sunshine and Shadow that somehow became way more about Jack and Sam. It begins aboard the Prometheus, which is carrying personnel and supplies to a new allied planet in anticipation of a treaty signing. Sam is on board for professional reasons. Daniel and Jillian for personal reasons. Captain Scott Lawrence is a member of Jillian's team – SG8. Annie is his civilian scientist girlfriend. If anyone is confused by anything please let me know as I may not have adapted it correctly.

I am posting this here for all the Jack-Sam shippers who don't want to slog through Sunshine and Shadow.

The first thing Daniel saw when he exited the elevator was a door directly opposite with a sign in large black hand written letters that said "Watch out for random robots". Underneath the lettering someone had drawn the image of a cartoon Airman wearing a Prometheus uniform flailing backwards as he tripped over four small cylindrical robots whizzing by under his feet.

A similar sign below that said "Puck and the Lucky Charms" with a caricature of a smiling man with a shock of red hair and round glasses wearing a lab coat and surrounded by a host of bullet shaped robots. He had found the temporary home of the scientist whose sole purpose in life was to create robots out of the alien technologies being brought back from off world.

When Daniel opened the door there was a skittering sound at his feet as something came flying out of the room at his feet. Beeping and chittering the small robot careened down the hall in a zigzag, hit a wall, self-corrected and went running around a corner like a squirrel on speed.

Daniel yelped an expletive in Chinese that Sam didn't quite catch. She laughed.

"That little devil's been bumping into the door for the last ten minutes hoping someone would open it," she said.

"Isn't that one of the Mapbots?" Daniel asked.

"Yes." He was answered by the red-haired scientist who had to be the inspiration for the caricature on the door. "It's got some new programming I'm testing. When it was done mapping the room it wanted to seek out parts unknown."

"Those things are amazing," Daniel said, "I can't wait to use them at that complex of ruins on PKZ-9934."

The young man – with the unusual name of Keeper Rand, Dr. Keeper Rand, Ph.D. in robotics and artificial intelligence – sighed and raked fingers through his disheveled hair.

"I'm glad you like it, Dr. Jackson," he said, "But only other scientists do. The Powers That Be thinks we're wasting our time at Groom Lake making toys and cleaning equipment. The mapbot has tons of applications but it doesn't blow things up."

Sam and Daniel locked eyes for a moment. That was true. The Powers That Be weren't interested in things that made life better for mankind; not even now with the Goa'uld scattered and the Replicators gone. They did like the discovery Sam had made that caused naquadah to float. Run a current of electricity through a wafer-thin slice of naquadah and it would hover as much as a few thousand feet off the ground. The mapbots were part of a prototype program to eventually replace the UAVs for long range exploration.

There were currently four of the robots – including the one that Daniel had let loose into the ship. They were named Star, Moon, Heart and Clover after the original marshmallows in the boxes of Lucky Charms. The one running the hallways of the Prometheus was Star. Moon, Heart and Clover were being held in a Plexiglas cabinet, hovering up and down like anxious puppies. Dr. Rand and his robotic pets were part of the cultural exchange of information program that was part of the treaty being signed with 672 – which was what the SGC personnel continued to call it since the native word for their planet was Manuahi Mau Loa.

"Did you come down just to visit the robots?" Sam asked.

"I was looking for you actually," Daniel answered, "I found Scotty and Annie and they told me you were here."

Sam had been asked to join the trip to 672. She had helped build Prometheus and they wanted her to tweak some of the systems. When Daniel had gone looking for her he'd discovered that the temporary robotics lab had asked for her help with the seismic sensor relay they were hoping to put up on Mauna Po'okela Ahi 'Ai Honua – the Mountain of Great Fire. It was also the biggest strato volcano anyone from Earth had ever seen.

Prometheus was currently carrying medical personnel, scientists including geologists, astrophysicists and astronomers, as well as Daniel, Sam and Jillian.

And their robotics specialist, Keeper Rand.

"Keeper asked me to look at the equipment headed for that big mountain everyone can't stop talking about," Sam explained.

Keeper was shaking his head slowly, as if he had just seen something inexplicable. "I couldn't believe how fast she stripped the array!" He said.

"She can field strip a P90 in ten seconds," he said, "I've seen her do it. After eight years I can still only do it in fifteen."

"That's because you get slowed down reading the instructions," Sam countered.

Daniel grinned. It was an old joke between them, part of the history they had built up over the same eight years and countless missions

"So does that mean you can reprogram my ground motion sensor to shoot things?" Keeper asked.

"Do you want me to?" Sam asked.

"You mean you can?" The young scientist's pale face got even paler.

"It might help expand your government grant next time the budget comes up for review," Daniel pointed out. "Sam has probably made targeting systems and experimental weaponry out of more things than you can even imagine."

"No MacGuyver jokes," Sam warned him, pointing a finger for emphasis.

Daniel grinned again. He was going to miss her desperately if she decided to take the job she had been offered at Area 51. Maybe Keeper's disenchantment with the place would help Sam make up her mind to stay.

If it didn't and SG1 lost Sam, it would probably lose Teal'c as well; and if that happened…..

Daniel had an idea of what he wanted to do. It would just mean talking his wife into it.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, Sam said, "Where's Jillian?"

"Taking a nap. She was tired after getting our room all settled."

Sam's face furrowed with concern. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah," Daniel said slowly, "Fatigue has been an issue in the last few weeks. We've been told it's normal."

Sam nodded and let it go after Daniel slid his gaze sideways to Keeper for a single second and then back to Sam, meaningfully. Jillian's pregnancy was still known to only a handful of people.

"Did you need me for something?" Sam asked him.

"No, I was just wondering what you were doing," Daniel answered.

"Want to help me recalibrate a laser sensor?" Sam wondered.

"Not really my field," he hedged.

"Actually we could maybe use your help, Dr. Jackson," Keeper spoke up, "I was just noticing that the instructions in Spanish don't seem to match the ones in English but my Spanish is rusty; and the Russian! Well…"

Daniel glanced at Sam, who shrugged. "It would be easier than translating ancient Phoenician under a floating bomb that may go off at any moment."

Daniel turned back to Keeper.

"I'd be happy to help," he answered, "and call me Daniel."

Keeper gave him smile that split his freckle-spattered face with genuine happiness.

"Welcome to the team, Daniel," he said. "and please call me Keeper and not Puck like everyone else does."

"Sure," Daniel said, easily and realizing that he was looking forward to having something important to do, "Where are these instructions?"

(0)


	38. Chapter 38

The language of 672, as it turned out, was almost identical to the ancient and original language of Hawaii. They had struggled during First contact. The Star Gate had seemed incapable of translating more than a handful of words in each spoken sentence. Then Daniel had noticed the pattern of hand signs. Once they had determined that different signs changed the meanings of the same spoken sound, communication had been possible. Daniel had determined that the hand signs had originated as a secret language to be used against the Goa'uld who had brought them to the planet centuries before.

She had watched Daniel master both languages in days, as if words were air and he could simply breathe them in. Once he had harnessed his keen intelligence and sense of purpose to something, he made it look easy..

At the moment the group from the SGC was standing in the Observation Room on Deck Two. It was set up as a Rec Room for the crew, a place to gather and relax, watch movies, hang out, play games. There was a large view screen and for twelve hours they had been able to watch the planet Manuahi Mau Loa growing larger and larger. The view had been almost exclusively the night side because of the trajectory of Prometheus' approach.

It was spectacular. The planet was mostly oceans with scattered continents of various size. The night side was dotted with the twinkling lights of civilization and ribboned by the wide dark expanses of water. There were also lights ringing the planet, hanging in space like a series of diamond bracelets. They were the fleet of ships and satellites that guarded the planet. The lights moved with Manuahi Mau Loa, anchored in geosynchronous orbit with the cities they were assigned to protect. Beyond the planet they could see the shining orb of the sun and beyond that was a thick streak of stars blazing all the colors of the rainbow as if a child had poured a long line of glitter across the night.

It was the Milky Way, edge-on, a view they had rarely gotten and never to this degree. Manuahi Mau Loa was so far out on the edge of the galaxy that the distant galactic core and the spiral arms became an unmoving firework display of stars across the black sky.

Sam was enchanted with it. Scotty, whose specialty was astronomy, was nearly beside himself with joy.

Jillian mostly just liked to stand by the railing in front of the view screen and look at it. She'd grown up watching Star Trek, loving Star Wars and devouring sci-fi books. The fact that she was now living it was sometimes overwhelming.

Daniel was treating them all with a kind of bemused tolerance. He had walked up behind Jillian just moments ago, touched her cheek with warm fingers before enfolding her in his arms. He felt real and solid and strong, enveloping her in his presence.

"How do you feel?" He asked softly.

"I feel fine," she said, with a touch of wonder in her voice. It was true. Now that it seemed her late afternoon bouts of nausea were going away, Jillian had realized she'd never felt so healthy in her life.

"Tired?" He pressed a little closer, anxiously.

"Not at all," she answered, reaching back to touch the line of his jaw. "I could probably sleep, but I don't really feel like I need to."

"Okay," he acquiesced with relief and nuzzled her hair for a moment even though they weren't exactly alone in the room. "It was worth the trip just for the view, huh?"

"It's incredible," she agreed, "It's hard to believe we had anything a civilization this advanced would ever need."

"The Star Gate," Daniel said simply.

Jillian nodded. Until SG10 had arrived through the Gate, the Mau Lo'ans hadn't known it was anything more than a monument of some sort, a piece of unknown origin, obscurely placed in a garden at their museum of ancient history. If they had been brought through it at some point that information had been lost. Their history recorded an uprising and rebellion against their 'gods' but the name Goa'uld was not known to them.

It had been a tricky negotiation. The Mau Loans had only united as one planet in the last seventy five years. The war ships that ringed their planet were the by-product of ground wars that had gone out into space. They had believed they were capable of defending their planet against anything that might be out there. They had no warp or lightspeed capabilities and the SGC had been unwilling to put such technology on the table. Allies had a way of becoming enemies and no one wanted to wake up one day with a fleet of Mau Lo'an ships surrounding Earth. Daniel's study of their history had revealed a violent past and their current united planet status seems too new and too fragile to trust entirely.

Adding the further complications of the language barrier and it seemed miraculous that Earth and the Mau Lo'ans had reached a treaty agreement at all. Jillian couldn't remember being so proud of her father. The efforts of Dr. Alexander North, Earth's Ambassador at Large, had proven invaluable.

Scotty and Annie were standing beside them at the forward railing. With them were two of the geologists assigned to join the Mau Lo'an volcano research station, Dr. Lemarr Whyte, who was flanked by his wife, Dr. Tanda Palmer-Whyte. The Whytes were from Jamaica originally, with the ebony skin and lilting accents one would expect with such a heritage. Daniel thought that between the Jamaican accents and the intertwining Hawaiian languages, Jillian might think she was getting a true island vacation. He leaned over a little to ask her a question but at that precise instant a hush fell over the room

"What's going on?" Daniel asked.

Scotty was prevented from responding by the slightest change in the sound of Prometheus' engines and a gentle shudder in the floor. The ship was changing course.

"We're going to come around the day side of the planet. Mt. Honua should be visible in a few minutes," Scotty explained. He had used the Earth-shortened version to identify the Mountain of Great Fire.

"From space?" Daniel asked, startled.

The answer came from Lamarr. "Honua is three-fifths the land base surface of Australia," he explained.

"Good god," Scotty said. "The damage that could cause…"

"Fortunately it hasn't done more than rumple in fourteen thousand years. There are small fissures and cracks all along its surface that act as safety valves," Lamarr explained.

"Look," Tanda said, pointing, "Coming up just there, on morning side."

A murmur of mixed emotions went through the gathered crowd – awe, surprise, shock. Some just gaped silently.

"The last time it erupted," Lamarr said with quiet respect, "It blasted out ash and rock that hit one of the moons."

The mountain pushed up arrogantly into the atmosphere. There was a halo of thick white clouds around its peak. The rest of it cascaded in ice blue prominence down to the surrounding sea. Even from this distance, the shadow it cast could be seen darkening the waters for several kilometers.

Daniel whispered into Jillian's ear, "Sam should be here. She'd want to see this."

As if he had conjured her, Sam shouldered her way up to stand beside them a few moments later.

"_Holy Hannah,"_ she breathed.

Annie spoke up, reciting the mountain's name with the perfect accent that only Daniel had managed to imitate correctly. "Mauna Po'okela Ahi 'Ai Honua."

"Mountain of great fire," Daniel said.

"One can only imagine," Annie agreed.

The church-like atmosphere continued for a few more hushed seconds and was suddenly broken when Scott Lawrence – with his typical irreverent ability to let anything stay quiet for too long – sang out the unmistakable opening lines of Marvin Gaye's classic song….

"_Listen, baby…."_

There were groans and laughter but he continued, spinning Annie around and pulling her out into the open space that served as a dance floor in the Rec Room.

"_Ain't no mountain high__  
><em>_Ain't no valley low__  
><em>_Ain't no river wide enough, baby…._ Come on, Jillian, sing with me."

Jillian turned in Daniel's arms and pushed him backwards with her hand in the center of his chest. Laughing, he took her into his arms in an informal dance hold as she sang…..

"_If you need me, call me_

_No matter where you are_

_No matter how far_

_Just call my name_

_I'll be there in a hurry_

_You don't have to worry….."_

"Everyone!" Scotty yelled.

The room erupted in dancing and off key singing….

" _'Cause baby,_

_There ain't no mountain high enough_

_Ain't no valley low enough_

_Ain't no river wide enough_

_To keep me from getting to you….."_

The spontaneous party continued for the next hour, as Prometheus made its approach to the planet. They laughed and sang and food arrived from somewhere. The impromptu karaoke went from ridiculous to sublime. Once word got out, people started arriving from other decks when they got off shift.

It broke up at last when the announcement came over the intercom that Prometheus was making its final approach and everyone should assume duty stations for planet arrival.

"Ready?" Daniel asked Jillian as they made their way back to their assigned quarters to gather the things they would need for a short stay planetside.

"More than ready," she smiled.

(0)


	39. Chapter 39

The first breath of air on a new planet was always an exhilarating experience, no matter that most members of the SGC teams were too well trained to show their reactions. The air surrounding the capitol city of Palolo on the main island of Haena was filled with tropical delights – rich florals and the crisp salt-scent of the breeze from the ocean. It was a city of elegant spires and towers shimmering silver and gold in the sunlight, rising up above trees with huge palm fronds. High in the sky, with multiple towers stretching for heaven itself was the capitol complex - Hale' Mailepai. Built into the sea cliff itself, this was the heart of the island and of the newly united Mau Lo'ans.

Between the island atmosphere and the fact that the city had a real functioning space port, Jillian was instantly bewitched by the place. Watching her mesmerized expression as they rode the open hover car to the building where they would be staying for the next few days, Daniel knew that he was more than glad he had stubbornly made this happen for her.

He looked over his shoulder at Sam, who was riding in the seat directly behind him. She was grinning broadly, blue eyes dancing.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I think I just found my new favorite vacation destination," she laughed.

Daniel looked at Keeper Rand, seated beside Sam along the railing. He was goggle-eyed, staring transfixed at the city landscape. He was watching the small teams of robots directing the hovering traffic and roving up and down the streets cleaning.

Behind Sam and Keeper, the Whytes were staring with quiet wonder at the image of Mauna Po'okela Ahi 'Ai Honua. It dominated the skyline, casting a shadow that reached nearly to the shores of Haena. Its flanks were coated in silvery snow. Its peak was lost in the clouds. Daniel couldn't help but stare.

When she saw the direction Daniel and the Whytes were looking, their guide spoke up in halting, deliberate English

"We never see the peak of the mountain. It draws the clouds like the ground draws lightning."

"This is true of volcanoes all over the galaxy," Tanda Whyte remarked. "They make their own weather."

Their guide, Ka'eo, turned and watched Daniel as Tanda spoke. His hands moved with surety, adding the correct motions to accompany Tanda's words. Ka'eo had worked tirelessly to learn English in preparation for being the Earth liason. But it helped enormously when someone could give her the proper hand signs to make the message clear. Two members of Daniel's linguistic staff had already been assigned to Jillian's father while working on the treaty.

There was a beep and Ka'eo produced a handheld viewer from a pocket in her brightly colored skirt. She opened it, read the message and then informed them.

"General O'Neill has just arrived through the Star Gate. He says that he will meet you at the guest quarters."

Daniel nodded for all of them.

They rose up out of the main city and came at last to the capitol complex. The building they were taken to could easily have been a cross between a castle in Wales and a six star hotel. It was made of stone that looked like granite with accents that looked like marble. Their suite of rooms was on the third to last floor of an enormous tower. It took up the entire floor. They rode up the tower in the smoothest elevator any of them had ever encountered. Daniel could see Sam practically salivating as she tried to figure out the technology being used. When she caught him looking at her, she grinned, knowing he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Jack was there waiting, eating something with one hand and looking out at the stunning view. He greeted them unceremoniously and gestured to the array of doors along the walls.

"Take your pick," he said.

There was a central room, circular but clearly intended to be a common area. A door directly across from the entrance was open to a terrace. A light breeze made a series of sheer curtains dance and ripple. Six other doors, three on each side, lined the walls.

The floors were patterned in an intricate geometric design and appeared to be made of varying shades of colorful slate. There were rugs scattered at random. The furniture was all of carved dark wood that was possibly teak, polished to gleaming. The fabrics were done tastefully in every color of the rainbow. The walls were dark stained wood to a chair rail and then marble-like tile. A mural of inlaid tiles on one wall showed a detailed image of life on the islands.

A narrow table against one wall held what was obviously food - fruit, something that might have been some kind of nuts, and a metal pitcher slick with moisture beside a collection of silver cups. There was a very comfy-looking leather sofa arrangement that ran along two of the walls. The place was lit with glowing globes all along the vaulted ceilings and some in sconces on the walls.

A quick inspection behind the doors revealed equally luxurious bedrooms. There was a brief, friendly argument about who got what view – all of those being equally luxurious as well. Daniel was satisfied to be on the opposite side of the tower from the imposing volcano. They could see the city and the ocean and Jillian was enchanted with all of it. She was even more enchanted to find that each room had its own bathroom with a tub that would comfortably seat four. Sam was likewise enamored, commenting that some comforts seemed to be universal.

They picked rooms and stowed their gear quickly Ka'eo had a busy day of sightseeing planned for them and they were all eager to get started.

In an attempt to satisfy Daniel's request to see ruins and Sam's request to see technology and the Whyte's need to get closer to Mt. Honua, Ka'eo had brought them one hundred klicks off the coast of Haena to a smaller island. In days far out of memory, according to Ka'eo, it had been the center of worship of the god Mauai. The old temple had eventually been converted to an unmanned volcano watch station and then abandoned when it was obvious that Mt. Honua seemed destined to remain quiet. The occasional rumble and slow ooze of lava from the fissures on its ancient sides had not been enough to continue funding the project, Ka'eo explained.

Scotty and Annie had tagged along just for fun.

From the outside the building looked like any of dozens of temples they had discovered over the years. It was dirt-streaked white marble overgrown with vines as the surrounding jungle sought to reclaim it. The roof may once have been reeds or palm fronds but had been replaced with the silver metal common on many of the buildings in the city. The inside was just as dust and vine covered but any resemblance to a temple ended abruptly inside the first door. The inside strongly looked like an air traffic control room, with consoles and instruments everywhere. The only hint that this had once been a temple was in the fading painting and carvings on the wall.

Sam was at the far side of the large room trying to pry a panel off a control panel. Jillian was brushing dirt off a section of painting, trying to get a better look. Jack was prowling the room looking unhappy that there was only one exit and no doubt wishing he hadn't left his sidearm back in tower room on Haena. Daniel was running his hand over the carvings on the wall, brushing away dust and cobwebs that had collected over a century. According to Ka'eo that is at least as long as this research station had been abandoned.

Scotty, Annie, the Whytes and Ka'eo had opted to take a walk up a short trail to the top of the island to see what Ka'eo claimed was a truly spectacular view of the volcano.

"What does it say?" Sam asked Daniel.

Lost in a translation, it took Daniel a moment to respond. Even after eight years he still seemed slightly startled when someone took an interest in what he was doing.

"This?" He asked, pointing to it. "Well, it's not instructions for whatever you're looking at over there. It's ummm, a prayer or a blessing. It may even be a song. There is a lot of repetition."

Sam straightened up and gave him a look of affectionate exasperation.

"What does it _say_?" She repeated.

"Oh!" Daniel looked back at it, so he missed the look that passed between Sam and Jillian. "It, ummm, it says:

"Safeguard us

That we may flourish in the heavens

That we may flourish this place

That we may flourish in these islands

Grant us knowledge

Grant us strength

Grant us intelligence

Grant us understanding

Grant us insight

Grant us power

The prayer is lifted, it is free."

He paused and looked at Sam. "There's more," he said.

"Go on," Sam encouraged.

Daniel looked skeptical for a moment but kept reading.

"Ancestors from the rising to the setting sun

From the zenith to the horizon

Ancestors who stand at our back and front

You who stand at our right hand

Hear us cry from across the heavens

A breathing in the heavens

An utterance in the heavens

A clear, ringing voice in the heavens

A voice reverberating in the heavens

Calling to you

Beseeching you

We are here

Here are your descendants

Find us. Come to us."

The women were quiet for a moment when he was done and then Jillian said,

"It sounds as if they were reaching out to the people of Earth. They knew this was not their original home."

"So it seems," Daniel agreed.

"So we have what then? Proof of what we already knew?" Jack asked. He had stopped pacing at a midway point between Sam and the door.

Daniel stared at Jack for a moment and then said, in a low, deadly, toneless voice. "Yes, Jack. That's exactly what it means."

He moved to another series of writings on the wall and Jillian moved with him. They all worked in silence for a few minutes. Jack resumed his circuit of the room, pausing by the door for a bit; and then a soft rumbling caught all their attention.

SGC trained and experience honed they all froze. For a moment it seemed like thunder but it had been a clear day with clear skies in all directions when they had entered the temple. Then it got louder and sounded like heavy machinery. Then they saw the dust begin a frantic, helpless dance as it responded to vibrations that were still too tenuous to feel.

All at once they realized what it was.

"Down!" Jack shouted, "Earthquake! Sam!"

He started to run across the room but the floor pitched wildly at that moment and turned his stride into a graceless stagger. Sam turned towards him and took a step, looking around for a table close enough, a door frame, _anything;_ but then it was too late. The snarl of tearing earth exploded into a roar, shaking them so hard that teeth rattled and the vibrations could be felt in their bones.

Daniel launched himself at Jillian, grabbed her around the waist and hauled her without ceremony under a metal table. The tile floor beneath them was swaying, gently at first and then with increasing force. Daniel wrapped both arms around her, held her head against his shoulder with one hand and curled the rest of his body around her in a tight ball. He pulled his glasses off just as everything began to shake in earnest.

"Jack!" He shouted, unable to see where his team mates were.

"Stay where you are!" Jack ordered, hollering over the sound of nature rearranging the land.

Daniel curled up even tighter, protecting her with his arms and legs, his back and shoulders, as a cascade of broken roof tiles began thundering on the table above their heads. A cracking noise preceded the sound of something heavy splintering and crashing somewhere near the door.

"Daniel," Jillian whimpered.

A screech of ripping metal prevented him from answering. There was another crash and more tiles rained from the ceiling.

It lasted no more than seconds but at last the rippling floor lay still and the last of the ceiling trickled down with a slither of plaster. Metal groaned and then fell silent.

"Jack!" Daniel yelled, at the same moment that Jack yelled, "Daniel!"

"Yeah," Daniel said. He loosened his hold on Jillian enough to lean back, take her face between his hands and look down into her wide eyes. She nodded in answer to his unspoken question. "We're fine but, uh….." He put his glasses back on and looked around. There was nothing but slabs of stone and metal surrounding the table, "I think we're trapped under here."

"All right, stay there. Sam!"

They all waited for Sam to respond. Long seconds passed. Jillian gripped Daniel's forearms and looked up at him, fighting panic.

"Sam!" Daniel shouted.

There was still no answer.

"Jack, can you see her?"

"Not from where I am. There's nothing where she was but a cabinet that fell off the wall."

"Sam!" Daniel yelled louder.

The room shivered suddenly and metal moaned again.

"Jack, what's the room look like?"

"It's bad. A couple of roof supports are down, a couple more are hanging by a thread. Stay there!"

Daniel could hear the sound of debris being tossed aside. Something trickled onto the metal table. A twist of metal next to them was hauled backwards and dust-flecked daylight poured into the opening. Jack bent down and peered in at them. His face was chalked with white dust and there was a cute on his temple.

"Doing okay?"

"Oh yeah, this is great, couldn't be better," Daniel quipped.

"All right, you can get out as soon as there is somewhere to go. Right now you're safer under there."

"What about Sam?"

"I'll get her," Jack said, with grim determination.

Daniel peered out through the narrow opening. It was just wide enough for him to see Jack wading through knee-deep debris. Beneath the noise he was making they could hear the ominous tick-by-tick sound of stone and plaster continuing to splinter from the stress.

"Daniel," Jillian whispered again.

He looked back at her again in alarm. "What? Are you hurt?"

"No, I don't think so. But what if there are aftershocks? The roof…."

Daniel took her face between his hands. "_Shhhh_. Shhhhh. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You know that."

Her hand gripped his wrist. "What about you?" she asked.

Daniel didn't have an answer for that. He was willing to risk his own death or serious injury to protect her and they both knew that. He had looked death in the face and never blinked too many times in his career and sometimes death even won – for a time.

But he wasn't going to lose Jillian and if it was at all possible, he wasn't going to make her live without him ever again.

Then his attention was caught by Jack hurling a broken cabinet out of the way to reveal Sam. She was lying on her side with blood trickling from a cut on her forehead. Her eyes were closed and she was pale.

Jack kicked more rubble out of the way and knelt, leaning over to listen for her breathing. When he sat back up his fingers were resting on her throat, on her carotid artery. His silence was unbearable.

"Is she all right?" Daniel demanded.

"No, Daniel she is _not_ all right. In case you missed it, she's unconscious and bleeding in a room that just got trashed by an earthquake."

"Jack!" Daniel growled, impatiently.

O'Neill relented.

"She's breathing and her pulse is strong." He shook her gently, "Sam! Sam, wake up."

But she remained unresponsive and Jack shot Daniel a grim look.

"That's three," Daniel commented.

Jack stared, blank. "Three what?" he asked.

"Three times you've called her Sam. I haven't heard you call her anything but Carter in seven years. Well, six considering the year I wasn't with you…."

"Daniel!"

"What"

"We're gonna do this _now_? Seriously?"

Daniel blinked.

"Okay, yeah. What's the situation then?"

Jack looked up. "The ceiling is cracking."

The splintering sound was getting more insistent, accompanied now by the unmistakable sound of bending metal.

From outside there was a sudden sound of voices, one much louder than the rest.

"_Jillian_!"

She looked up, startled. "That's Scotty."

Of course, Daniel thought. Like all members of an SGC team, Scotty would be more worried about Jillian than anyone else.

"Lawrence!" Jack yelled.

"Yes sir!" The response came back with military precision. "How are you all doing in there, sir?"

"Is everyone out there all right?"

"Yes sir! We all got knocked off our feet but no one is hurt. Ka'eo is taking the Whytes back to the main island. She called for help. What is your situation, sir?"

There was a loud crack as a beam in the ceiling began surrendering to the stress.

"I don't think help from Haena is going to get here fast enough," Jack said.

Jillian moved closer to Daniel, clinging. He wrapped his arms around her tighter.

"Our situation is _not_ good," Jack hollered, "Captain, do _not_ attempt to get through the front of this building. I repeat, do _not _touch the front of this building. The roof is about to come down."

"Understood, sir. Suggestions?"

Jack looked around and then looked at Daniel.

"I got nothing. Any move we make is likely to bring this whole place down on us."

Daniel's eyes tracked back and forth rapidly behind his glasses, as if he was scrolling through possibilities in his mind and just as quickly discarding them.

"Ummm, ummm, _Prometheus_!"

"It can't get here any faster than help from the main island," Jack said.

"But it has the new Asgard beam," Daniel said, "They can beam us out of here."

"They need to know where we are," Jack countered, "We need locator beacons. Happen to have one?"

"Not on me," Daniel admitted.

"What about Keeper?" Jillian said, suddenly.

"Keeper? Rand?" Jack repeated. "The robot guy?"

"No, no, she's right," Daniel said, his brain already running ahead to Jillian's point. "He can use one of the mapbots to get in here with the locators."

Jack held Daniel's eyes for a moment. "Could work," he admitted. "Lawrence!"

"Sir!" Scotty shouted.

"Get on the radio. Contact Prometheus. Tell them we need Dr. Rand, one of his robots and four locator beacons and we need that _five minutes ago."_

"Yes, sir!" Scotty sounded unbelievably relieved to have something to do.

"Daniel," Jack said.

"What?"

"I need your help."

"Doing?"

"We have to find an opening big enough for a mapbot to get in here."

Daniel frowned and shook his head. He didn't want to leave Jillian, but Jack was right. He held her tight for a moment.

"I'll be right back."

Jillian didn't argue.

Daniel crawled slowly out into the wreckage. He risked a glance at the ceiling and found it sagging dangerously, hairline cracks inching wider. The remaining support beams looked like kindling. He muttered a particularly foul curse in Chinese under his breath.

"We should get Sam under the table."

Jack shook his head emphatically but didn't look happy. "No, she could have a back injury, or worse. Not moving her. We get out of here, Daniel."

Overhead there was another loud crack by the door. Jack and Daniel threw themselves against the back wall, covering Sam, as a huge section of roof cascaded down. One of the support beams simply buckled and cracked in two. Dust and debris rained on them. When it cleared there was a huge chunk of roof teetering precariously on a few broken beams, air and the sincere will power of Jack and Daniel.

"Daniel!" Jillian cried.

"It's okay! We're fine"

Jack and Daniel stood up, cautiously.

"Well the bad news is that the door is even more blocked," Jack said.

"There's good news?" Daniel wondered, ruffling dirt and broken tiles out of his hair.

Jack gestured to the top of the front wall. "We don't have to look for an opening anymore."

Daniel followed Jack's hand with his eyes. Sure enough there was daylight streaming through a sizable hole in the wall where the ceiling had once been.

"General O'Neill!" Scotty's voice called. "Dr. Rand is here!"

"General?" Keeper's voice sounded shaky. "I've got one of the mapbots, sir. Clover. But she can only carry two of the locators at a time. They weren't designed to carry weight at all really. I could probably make a few modifications in the future but this isn't what they were originally meant to do…."

"Rand! Send them in!" Jack ordered. Under his breath he muttered, "Scientists."

"Sam and Jillian first," Daniel said, unnecessarily.

"Ya betcha," Jack replied.

A soft whirring noise announced the arrival of Clover. The small 'bot was moving like a drunken bumblebee. There were two black shapes duct taped to the top of it. Jack surged forward through the mess to grab it.

"Bring it down, Keeper!" Daniel shouted.

Clover dropped and Jack grabbed it.

"Shut it off!" He yelled and Clover stopped struggling in Jack's grip.

Jack ripped the tape off and tossed a beacon to Daniel, who was still standing by Sam. He knelt and put it in Sam's hand. He pushed it and Sam vanished in a familiar blue-lit whine.

Jack pushed forward once again to the table and tossed the other beacon under it for Jillian.

"Daniel!" she said.

"Go! For gods' sake, Jillian!"

Another blue-lit whine sounded and Daniel was helplessly, achingly grateful for it. Looking at Jack he saw the same emotion reflected back at him.

"Rand!" Jack yelled. "Recall this little beast!"

Clover stirred back to life, lifted and shot back towards the opening in the ceiling. The loosely balanced section of roof groaned and shifted. Jack moved towards Daniel, herding him bodily up against the rear wall. It wasn't going to do much good and they both knew it. If that slab came down it was going to bring the rest of the roof with it.

"General, Clover is coming back!" Keeper hollered.

"Okay," Jack said. He started to move into the center of the room again and Daniel grabbed his arm. The roof slab was starting to shift downward, like the slow motion start of an avalanche.

Clover showed up again, moving fast.

"Straight!" Jack yelled. "Just stay that course! …. Okay, shut it off!"

Clover dropped out of the air millimeters before it would have either hit the wall or veered in another direction. Jack was still catching it as Daniel ripped the tape back. They hit the signal on the beacons just as roof teetered, rocked and gravity won. The slab came slamming down above them.

The last thing they saw before it would have crushed them was the shimmer of blue that heralded the Asgard transporter beam.

(0)


	40. Chapter 40

Some time later Daniel found Jack on the Bridge of the Prometheus. He was in full 'General' mode, serious, a commanding presence even just sitting – slightly slouched - in the center chair listening to several people all reporting to him at once. There was something leonine about him, Daniel decided, something lethal and alert even at his most laconic.

Jack caught Daniel's eye in a quick glance that acknowledged Daniel's presence. The Airman reporting to him final wound down and Jack stood. He strode towards a door at the side of the Bridge, motioning with his head for Daniel to follow.

"Pendergast!" He said.

"Sir!"

"I'm using your office," Jack informed him.

"Yes, sir."

The room was sparse even by military standards. But it had a desk and two chairs. Jack claimed the chair at the desk, leaving the other one for Daniel.

Daniel didn't miss the slight grimace that crossed Jack's rugged face as he sat down. His knee – or both of them – was bothering him and Daniel hoped he hadn't wrenched something during the earthquake. Jack hadn't bothered getting checked out and if, Daniel knew him, he wasn't going to get checked out for hours still.

"How is the ship?" Daniel asked.

"Minor damage, nothing structural. Some stuff that fell off tables. No injuries. The damned thing's been designed to get shot at and travel at lightspeed. It better be able to withstand some ground shaking."

Daniel stayed quiet for a moment. Jack was at about a ten on his 'annoyed scale.' It didn't get much higher. He decided to let Jack speak next…..

Which he did not too much longer.

"Jillian resting?"

Daniel frowned. "Yes. She was sleeping when I left her," he regarded Jack closely. "I suppose you've had a medic reporting to you?"

"Regularly."

"Then you know that Sam has a mild concussion and some minor bruises and they're going to let her wake up on her own?"

"Yes," Jack answered, "and I know that Jillian is fine. Anything you want to add to that?"

"Do I need to?"

"It's not like I asked for the personal details, Daniel."

"She's fine. The baby's fine. We did an ultrasound just to make sure. Thank you again for finding Alex. It went a long way to calming her down."

_The Asgard beam had transported Jack and Daniel directly to the sick bay on the Prometheus and found it a hive of buzzing efficiency. Sam was being wheeled into an exam room by two medics and Daniel felt Jack take an involuntary step forward to go with her and then stop when he realized he couldn't._

_Jillian was standing with Scotty's arms around her. Daniel felt a surge of mixed emotions – a slight twinge of jealousy, gratitude that she had someone comforting her and relief that she was all right. It helped that Annie was standing behind Scotty with her forehead resting on his back and her hand on his forearm. Scott let Jillian go the moment they saw Daniel and she had run to him, flung her arms around him and held tight._

_It went a long way to easing the twinge of jealousy. Daniel knew that Scott loved Jillian, but only in the same way Daniel loved Sam. There had been no mistaking the undertone of panic in Scott's military-professional voice when he was outside the crumbling temple. It had matched the sound of his own voice – and Jack's – when Sam hadn't answered them._

_Daniel locked eyes with Scotty across the brief distance between them and nodded a little._

"_Thanks," he said, "for getting us out of there."_

"_Not a problem," Scotty answered and then he turned away, reaching for Annie and wrapping her up in his arms._

_Jillian was shaking and Daniel started swaying a little, whispering in a mix of Dutch and English that it was okay and it was all over now._

"_I need to know where my Dad is," she had begged._

_Daniel hugged her, carded his fingers through into her hair and said, "Okay, but I'm not leaving you until I know you're completely all right."_

"_Daniel, please," Jillian insisted._

_Beside him Jack spoke up, "I'll go."_

_Daniel looked at him in surprise. "You will?"_

"_Yeah. Nothing I can do here anyway. I'm sure Pendergast has it under control but I should check anyway, see what assistance we're offering. I can track down Dr. North in the process."_

"_Thank you, Jack," Jillian had said, softly._

Within a half an hour Jack had Alexander North speaking to his daughter over the ship's comm system. He had told them the city was largely untouched as earthquakes were common and the buildings had been designed to handle them. The epicenter had been nearly one hundred kilometers off the south shore of Mt. Hanau. It had just been a 'wrong place/wrong time' situation that had placed Daniel, Jack, Sam and Jillian in an abandoned building just as the earthquake hit.

Alexander told them that the government complex was still being checked for structural damage and advised that they should all just stay on board Prometheus for the time being.

The sound of her father's voice and her baby's heartbeat had been all Jillian needed to help her sleep.

Daniel had to admit that it was a great relief to know Alexander was all right and for the other… Well, for someone who was less than an inch big, his son sounded pretty strong.

"Good," Jack said.

"I don't think I've ever seen Jillian like that," Daniel said, softly.

There was the slightest change in Jack's demeanor. Without seeming to move at all he was somehow more alert.

"Like what?"

"That …..scared."

"Look, Daniel. Your wife is a part of a front line SGC team. You know what she's faced out there. I know you're used to getting nothing but grace under pressure from her. But everything changes when there's a baby involved, Daniel. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You ever remember being that scared? Ever?"

"I don't remember being scared at all," Daniel answered. "Not then, not during the earthquake. I didn't have time. I didn't get scared until right before the ultrasound. Then….. yeah, I guess I've never been so scared in my life."

Jack nodded. "Everything changes."

Daniel decided not to press Jack about that. He knew that there was only one time in Jack's life that he had been terrified out of his mind – and in that case his worst fears had come true. There was nothing Jack would ever face worse than the moments just after he'd heard a gunshot from his bedroom 9 years ago.

He started to comment that this was all happening at a time in his life when everything seemed to be changing anyway when Col. Pendergast appeared in the doorway.

"Sir?"

Jack looked up and the Colonel went on. "Sorry for the interruption, General, but you said you wanted to be notified immediately when Col. Carter woke up."

Jack and Daniel both stood up as one fluid unit and headed for the door.

"I'll be in sickbay, Colonel," Jack said.

"Understood, sir."

(0)

It was unusual for the medical department of the Prometheus to work double shifts. The ship had served mostly as a shuttle and cargo transport. It was rarely used in battle and when it was, they were close to Earth and additional personnel.

This time the crew had been called on to offer humanitarian aid to the people of Haena and the surrounding lesser islands. There had been no fatalities, thankfully. The people were clearly used to earthquakes and had ridden this one out well. According to the geologists from the SGC the quake had been the equivalent of a 5.9 on the Richter.

That didn't mean the medical centers and hospitals weren't busy with injuries, some of them serious. Airman and USAFMS nurse Monica Hunter had already been on her feet for an eight hour shift when the quake hit. She had volunteered to be in the first group of personnel being sent to assist in the city. Instead of going straight to her quarters when she had finally returned to the ship, she had gone to sickbay to see if there was anything else that needed to be done.

Things were fairly quiet when she arrived, though there was someone in the private isolation room and that was odd.

"Who's in there?" She had directed the question to a fellow Airman, Craig Philips.

He seemed surprised. "You don't know?"

"Can't tell from out here," she answered, trying to peer through the window without getting caught doing so.

The figure in the bed was quite still beneath the green sheets and there was a flash of blond hair on the pillow.

"That's Colonel Carter," Philips answered, "She got caught out on the small island and a cabinet fell on her. She's been unconscious."

"Colonel Carter!" Monica gasped.

She had been on board the Prometheus since it had left Earth and Monica hadn't see Colonel Carter even once. She had been hoping for even a glimpse. The missions of SG1 were required reading for anyone who had been approved for the SGC program, even those destined to serve on Prometheus instead of traveling through the Gate. SG1, and especially Colonel Samantha Carter, had become heroes for the young Airman. But the Colonel had proved elusive; as had Dr. Jackson and his wife, Dr. North.

Like an aircraft carrier on Earth, the Prometheus was a floating city in itself. It wasn't unusual to go for weeks without one department seeing anyone from another.

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Philips asked.

Monica shrugged, craning for a better look. "She's SG1, you know? They aren't supposed to get hurt."

"You read the missions. They're human, not indestructable. They get hurt like the rest of us."

"Not in earthquakes! That seems pretty senseless. Is she going to be all right?"

"She woke up a few minutes ago. I just delivered the message to the Bridge."

"Okay, that's good." She was about to ask for more details when two men came through the main door. All the words she had ready to say died unspoken.

"Isn't that….Isn't that? Oh my god, it _is," _she stammered.

The tall man with the graying hair and the rugged planes and angles of a face she had only ever seen in pictures was Brigadier General Jonathan O'Neill. He was much taller than Monica had ever imagined and such a….. a _presence_ that he seemed to charge the air just by his occupation of it. He was all trim muscle and implied strength beneath a slightly rumpled desert tan BDU. He stood with authority and he moved like Secret Service. His face was shockingly handsome, younger-looking than she knew he was, but older somehow, too, etched with experience. It was a face that could automatically convey calm strength no matter what was going on around him.

"General O'Neill," Philips said, unnecessarily, "Why? Jeezus, Hunter, what the hell is wrong with you?"

"_And_ Dr. Jackson! That's one-_half_ of SG1," she hissed, excitedly, "Did you ever think you'd get to see any of them in person?"

"They're not rock stars," Philips said, but Monica couldn't help but notice he was staring too.

The other man was obviously Dr. Jackson. He was turned in profile to her as he listened to Dr. Reese's report. It was a stunning profile - strong jaw and chin, slightly turned-up nose, full lips, short hair in a casual, bedroom-tousle. He was Hollywood-handsome, with something almost boyish to his chiseled symmetry. Even from the side and behind his glasses he had striking eyes, which she had never noticed before in any of the formal photos she had seen of the team.

As if he had felt her eyes, Dr. Jackson turned his head and looked casually at her. For a moment Monica felt as if sickbay had literally disappeared. Full on his eyes were not just striking, they were astonishing clear blue, crinkling around the edges with the kind of lines acquired by squinting into the sun in tropical places. There was quiet curiosity in his gaze, sharpening into something like amusement as if he had just suddenly realized something.

Slowly, Dr. Jackson cocked his head. The hint of a shy smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. It seemed to Monica that he came just short of nodding to her before turning his attention back to the General and Dr. Reese.

_God,_ she thought,_ imagine being married to him…_

The men spoke to the doctor for another brief moment and then moved off towards the isolation room in lock step.

The moment the General and Dr. Jackson entered the isolation room, Colonel Carter sat up. Any sign of weakness or injury were not apparent. She moved with a kind of fluid grace with her eyes riveted on her CO. General O'Neill was standing with his back to the window, but it seemed he must have spoken. Monica could see his jaw move and whatever he said made Colonel Carter's eyes widened slightly, as though what he said was enlightenment or epiphany. It caused an immediate reaction, a connection between them and a slow - and very sensual - smile spread her already lovely mouth into a shape of beauty. Samantha Carter was not just beautiful. Suddenly, in the presence of her teammates, she was luminous.

She transformed completely from patient to Colonel Carter right before Monica's eyes. Suddenly three-fourths of the legendary SG1 was _right there_.

She was startled out of her euphoric vision of her heroes by the gruff voice of her CO.

"Hunter!" Reese snapped.

"Sir!" She answered.

"You're asleep on your feet. Go get some rest. Everything's under control here."

"Yes, sir."

Lowly Airman Monica Hunter took one more look at the image of SG1, wished just a little bit that Teal'c had been there too and then turned to seek the quiet of her quarters.

(0)


	41. Chapter 41

omething about 672 had made Jack's skin itch ever since he had come through the Star Gate. He had hoped at first that the earthquake had been the source of his discomfort, of the soft insistent chime of his warning bells. But when it hadn't lessened even after he'd determined that everyone was all right, he had ordered Prometheus back into space in a planetary orbit that was geosynchronous with the capital city. He had considered ordering all the military personnel back aboard ship and shelved it for the time being. It couldn't hurt to have boots on the ground, especially not with Carter in charge. As a further precaution he ordered everyone to have a locator beacon on them at all times. There had been some grumbles from the scientists but he had held firm.

There had been nothing at the state dinner to trigger any alarms. It had been a reasonably boring evening that had required his dress blues and caused an unmistakable ember of desire to smolder in Sam's eyes all evening. But nothing had shown up that was large, menacing, or formidable with weapons and armor and teeth.

Much later in the evening when Jack had been certain that everyone else in their palatial accommodations was asleep he had gone out onto his balcony, protected by the clouded night and the fact that they were on the 28th floor. There was nothing but a stone wall about eight inches thick between his balcony and Sam's. He had climbed around it easily, simple matter of moving from railing to railing and hugging the wall, still wearing his dress blues to take advantage of the dark color. He needed to see her privately, to tell her about his nagging feelings of impending doom – confident that she wouldn't question him.

He knocked softly on the glass door and she greeted him wearing a light blue camisole and panties and her Beretta. It was probably one of the most erotic things he had ever seen her in, sidearm included in the image. She had been equally exasperated, infuriated and delighted to see him.

"Are you out of your mind?" She had demanded, setting the gun on a side table and seizing the front of his jacket. There had been something shockingly arousing about the contact of his wool uniform and all its stiff stars and bars coming into contact with her mostly bare skin and silky lingerie. For a moment he had done nothing but let her feel the powerful effect of Brigadier General Jack O'Neill in full uniform backing her into a wall and holding her there. She responded by slipping her arms around his neck and demanding a passionate kiss.

When they had come up for air she had gasped, "What if you had fallen?"

"That would have been bad," he admitted, kissing her again.

"What the hell are you thinking?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Did you consider just knocking on the front door, you know the one out in the common room?"

"I didn't want anyone to know how long I'm going to be in here."

The truth was that he had done much more dangerous things and for reasons that had been much less important to him than the chance to spend a few uninterrupted hours with her.

They had not spoken again for a long time after that, being too occupied with other more physical things.

Jack dozed a little bit afterwards, feeling relaxed for the first time since walking through the Star Gate two days earlier. Perhaps not relaxed but exhausted enough to rest soundly if even for a short while. He woke up later with Sam still in his arms and his face buried in her tousled hair. Being with her, belonging with her, was like a dream come true and he was afraid to get used to it.

But he wanted to wake up with Sam every morning for the rest of his life, if only that could be possible.

She stirred when he did, rolled over in his arms and blinked up at him a few times as her eyes focused in the dark.

"Can I ask you something?" she murmured, snuggling closer until her cheek rested on his chest.

"What?"

"You knew, didn't you? About the earthquake. You knew something was going to happen. I could tell by the way you were pacing around and looking for exits."

"I was not pacing."

"Yes, you were."

He hesitated and then spoke into the dark. "I've felt like something was going to happen since I got here. I still do."

"Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes. I'm not kidding when I say I want everyone on alert."

"So it wasn't the earthquake?"

"Not just the earthquake, no."

He started kissing the outline of her face and then along her cheekbones and forehead, all the exquisite bone structure that supported her beauty. Sam stayed still while he did it. She loved Jack and she had come to appreciate the instinct and battle-honed reflexes that functioned below his conscious level.

As a scientist Sam wasn't actually good at trusting her instincts. Over the years working side by side she had learned to trust Jack's, as he had learned to trust her skill and knowledge.

"So, what is it then?"

"I don't know," he had admitted. "But I'm going to find out."

He had waited until she had fallen back to sleep and then slipped with silent stealth out of the bed. She had stirred but settled down quickly when he kissed her forehead and told her to go back to sleep.

The whir and light of the Asgard beam taking him to the Prometheus woke her again, but he never knew.

He had taken a shower and gotten another hour's sleep before closeting himself in Pendergast's office the next morning. This time he didn't just read the cliff notes version of Alexander North's report on 672. He read every word looking for clues.

He thought he'd found it on page 43 and had Alexander beamed to the Prometheus and brought to the office.

Without preliminary and almost before Alexander had finished sitting down Jack said, "Tell me about this group, these aww-maw-koo…."

"Aumakua aina. The Guardians of the Land," Alexander interrupted. "It's a small but very vocal group dedicated to the idea that Mau Loa should stay isolated. They think the Star Gate is now a very bad and very dangerous thing and don't want the treaty with Earth. They call us haoli and it isn't a compliment."

"How organized are they?"

"I couldn't tell you," Alexander sighed, "The government here isn't very forth coming about their activities."

"Why not?" Jack demanded.

"Why would they?" Alexander countered, "Are we going to suddenly tell all our allies about terrorist activities on Earth and how we know what they're doing?"

Jack only heard one word in the sentence. "Terrorists?"

"That's probably over stating. But they have filed formal protests about the treaty. Security is heightened. I don't expect them to a factor."

Jack had thanked Alexander for his time and then had Sam summoned from the surface. He told her about the group and then they went on a readiness tour of the ship.

It was somehow fitting that they were together when the attack began. Jack and Sam were deep in the labyrinth that was Prometheus so they didn't see the orange-gold blasts of weaponry ripping the blackness of space. But they felt the impact against the ship's shields. The attack alert warning sounded urgently. A small group of fighters had broken off from one of the Mau Lo'an ships and swarmed the Prometheus with weapons blazing. There was a report of another group of fighters heading for the capital city. It was also somehow fitting that they were closest to the 302 bay. Jack stopped long enough to shout orders to Pendergast over the comm system to get the Prometheus on top of the capital city now.

"I want everyone with a locator beacon on this ship in the next sixty seconds, Colonel. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Jack and Sam burst into the command station of the fighter bay and found Major Rogers deploying the 302s.

Jack nodded towards the 302s on the other side of the reinforced safety glass.

"You got another couple of those?" he asked.

"I have one ready to go, sir. The pilot is out with a broken arm."

"We'll take it."

"Sir?" Sam asked. Things were moving a little too fast.

"You got a better idea of how we can be the most useful? Pendergast can command the ship. You got a better plan say it now."

"Fresh out of ideas sir," she answered. Truthfully staying on board Prometheus was not something she wanted to do; not if there was action she could take.

He turned back to Rogers."Who's out there already?"

"Alpha and Gamma Flights, sir. Colonel Pickering and Colonel Ross respectively."

"Got it."

Sam's eyes flared open in anticipation as they raced towards the hangar deck.

"Flight suits?" she asked.

"No time. Grab a helmet. You want shotgun or the stick?"

"Shotgun."

Jack snorted. "Figures."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam asked as she scrambled up the ladder into the 302.

"I'm the better pilot. You're the better shot."

"Actually I thought I was better at both," Sam slid into the rear seat and strapped in. "You know we've never done this before," she added.

"Flown together? Yes we have."

"In a 302? Into combat?"

"First time for everything. You ready?"

"Preflight?"

"No time."

Jack decided later that he would have liked to have seen Sam's face when he blasted into open space when the bay doors were barely wide enough to get through. Her soft gasp and muffled curse were carried into his helmet by the comms.

"Hang on, R2," Jack said.

Sam muttered again and then said, clearly, "Sir! If that becomes my new call sign so help me…."

She cut off as another voice joined their conversation, "Welcome to the party, General. Relinquishing command."

"Negative!" Jack said, "Negative Colonel. We'll fly solo. You two keep your squads and do it like you practiced it."

"Yes, sir."

"Understood, sir."

All around them the 302s were running down incoming fighters and the black of space was lit up with weapons fire. The Prometheus was executing a graceful and purposeful turn to obey Jack's order to defend the city and recall their people.

Trusting his flight instincts above his tactical computer, Jack turned it off.

"You ready?" He asked Sam.

"Let's do this," she answered, grimly.

(0)


	42. Chapter 42

The beach wasn't exactly the same as Jillian's beloved beach house in St. John. The sand was not quite sugar-white. But the ocean was warm and inviting, sparkling pale blue. All of those things were no doubt important to Jillian and she had seemed relaxed and happy during their swim. He was watching her standing in the bright afternoon sun, drying her hair with a towel, lost a little in wonder. Then he noticed she was staring at the sky and had stopped moving.

"Daniel?"

"Yes?"

"What's that?" She pointed up.

Daniel had to reach for his glasses first. When he followed the direction of her hand he stopped for a breath. Then another. All around them the other beach goers were standing up and pointing. A hushed murmur rippled through the crowd.

"It's the Prometheus," he said, coming to his feet.

"Making atmosphere?" Jillian questioned, "What would make Jack send her back?"

"Nothing good I can think of," he answered.

Daniel reached for his wife's hand standing on a Mau Lo'an beach…..

….And finished taking it standing on the bridge of the Prometheus. Noise and activity swarmed over them. He and Jillian were flanked by the geologists to their right and by Scotty Annie and Alexander North to their left.

The Whytes immediately erupted in emphatic protests.

"Colonel! What is going on? The Mau Lo'ans have just granted us access to their observatory platform. We were right in the middle of gathering crucial data on the volcano! That was a magnitude 6 earthquake and it caused several landslides near the summit. There are incidents of venting from new chambers as well as lava flow on the north slope. We had just detected a cyclicity in the harmonic tremors…"

Colonel Pendergast ignored Lamarr Whyte for most of his rant as he alternately took a report from one Airman about incoming Mau Lo'an Kekoa-class ships and from the Helm about setting a course over the city. It was Daniel who cut off the frustrated scientist.

"Dr. Whyte! Lamarr, listen. They've clearly got a situation here. I've been pulled off archaeological ruins in ways I thought would make my head explode but maybe we ought to find out what's going on," he said. If he felt odd about standing on the Bridge of a 304 wearing nothing but a wet swim suit and his glasses it didn't show.

"Dr. Jackson, I wish I had time to explain it to you," Colonel Pendergast said, "Suffice to say we are under attack by an unknown force of unknown strength and for unknown reasons. At the moment I need you all to clear the Bridge. Lawrence!"

"Yes, sir!"

"I need you in weapons."

"Yes, sir," Scotty was in motion without another word to anyone, vanishing through a doorway.

"Wait! Colonel, where's Jack? General O'Neill?"

"The General and Colonel Carter commandeered a 302 and joined the dogfight."

"Dogfight!" A chorus of voices repeated the word while Daniel said, "They did what?"

As if on cue a flight of Mau Lo'an fighters swept across the forward viewer. Orange-red weapons fire spat at the Prometheus, causing the 304's shields to visibly ripple with the force of the blasts. Plasma energy ebbed and flowed across the ship's hull and windows like a flooding river and then shimmered out of existence. The Bridge occupants were forced to close their eyes and look away for a moment. When they looked back they saw an angry swarm of 302s bearing down on the attacking Mau Lo'an ships. One of the 302s came racing in straight at the Prometheus, ducked under an enemy fighter by spinning 'upside down' beneath it. The 302s weapons systems lanced red bolts at the enemy ship until it started to come about in sheets, slowly disintegrating before erupting in a flash-fire. Then the 302 veered off at the last possible second, pulling up just before it would have hit the Prometheus. It seemed to stand on its tail, hovering like an ornament on a string. The maneuver had killed the 302's velocity and no doubt tested the g-loads of its occupants beyond normal parameters. It hung over the Prometheus for a breathtaking moment before rocketing straight 'up' and disappearing.

"Guess who _that_ was," Daniel said.

Static came over the comm system and Jack's voice suddenly filled the Bridge.

"_Pendergast! You have everyone from the surface?"_

"Negative, General. We retrieved everyone except Dr. Rand."

An Airman came to them on some invisible order. He picked up the abandoned locator from the floor beside Alexander.

"Jack!" Daniel shouted, "What the hell is going on?"

"_Go to your quarters and __stay__ there, Daniel."_

Daniel's face set in the grim line that indicated how much he enjoyed being ordered around. By anyone. Ever. Jillian squeezed his hand and stepped closer.

"Daniel, please," she whispered urgently.

The Airman at the comm system spoke up. "Colonel, we have an incoming message from the _Uhane._"

"On visual, Airman," Pendergast said.

"_Prometheus, this is Commader Kaimano of the Uhane. Coming to your assistance. Do not fire! Repeat, do not fire."_

Pendergast looked at Daniel. Without the benefit of the translators, he had only understood every other word.

"Dr. Jackson?"

"He said his name is Commander Kaimano and he's here to help."

"Is there any indication that he's lying?" Pendergast asked.

"None that I can see," Daniel answered.

"With all respect, Commander," Pendergast said, "I have nothing but your word that you're here to help."

Daniel turned to the view screen and repeated what Pendergast had said, hands and fingers moving eloquently. Kaimano turned and gave an order that Daniel didn't translate.

"Colonel!" The Helmsman said, sharply, "_Uhane_ is opening fire on the hostiles, sir."

There was a flash of light on the forward viewer – a brief and blazing shower of white and red and orange. It was followed almost immediately by another.

"Two hostiles eliminated, Colonel."

"_Will that suffice, Colonel_?" Came the voice on the comm from the Kekao-class heavy cruiser. Daniel translated.

"That will do, Commander," Pendergast answered.

Commander Kaimano continued to speak, hands gesticulating for meaning and emphasis. Daniel watched intently. When Kaimano finished, Daniel turned to Pendergast again.

"He says that there's been a mutiny on board one of their ships, the _Makani_. The Bridge is being held by mutineers and they are intent on destroying the Earth people, or at very least driving us away."

Pendergast threw an order over his shoulder. "Helm, evasive maneuvers. Airman Michaels! Get those people off the Bridge!"

"Yes, sir.

"Dr. Jackson, I'd appreciate it if you could return to the Bridge in case I need you for communication. As soon as you're dressed, of course," Pendergast said, "I understand that General O'Neill ordered you to your quarters…."

"It's fine," Daniel said, "I wasn't going to follow the order anyway."

Airman Michaels started herding them towards the exit. Lamarr Whyte was still upset however.

"Colonel Pendergast I demand you send my wife and I back _immediately…"_

Alexander stepped between Whyte and the Colonel. "Lamarr, let them deal with this. The volcano has been there for thousands of years. It will still be there in a few hours," he said.

"Dad," Jillian spoke up. Her voice was almost as tight as her grip on Daniel's hand. "You really don't know what's going on either?"

Daniel glanced at his wife and could tell from the startled look in her eyes that she had been assuming her dad knew. Why she had thought that, Daniel didn't know.

"No, Baby Girl I'm sorry. I think it may have something to do with a small group of dissidents that don't want the treaty to be signed. It's probable they are the ones who commandeered the ship and attacked us."

They were out in the hall by this time, though it was no less chaotic there. The ship suddenly gave a hard shudder. The occupants of the corridor were tossed casually against the bulkheads. Daniel caught Jillian and pivoted so that he hit the steel wall and let her fall against him. Alexander caught Annie. The Whytes stumbled and caught each other.

"Dissidents?" Daniel repeated, incredulous, "No one said anything to us about dissidents."

"It's in my report," Alexander answered, "Doesn't anyone read those things?"

"Not the whole thing," Daniel admitted softly. There was an edge in his voice that made Jillian look at him sharply. His eyes had a glazed, cool look in them. She knew the look, the sound. She'd been using it to gauge Daniel Jackson for many years. His temper was on the rise.

The ship rocked again.

"Daniel, I'd really like to get somewhere safe," Jillian said, gripping him tightly with both hands.

"We _were_ somewhere safe," Daniel said. The tone of his voice was both seduction and threat and she was never quite sure how he managed it. "That beach had to be much safer than a ship that is under fire. I'm going to murder Jack if he doesn't get himself killed out there."

"Well we aren't going back to the beach," Jillian said. She trembled suddenly.

"You're cold," Daniel said, anxiously.

"I'm not wearing anything but a wet bathing suit."

Alexander turned to Airman Michaels. "We can find out way to our own quarters, Airman. Thank you." He pivoted back to the group, "Ladies and gentleman, I suggest we all take ourselves to a safe location."

Looking slightly less unhappy but still grim, the Whytes linked arms and set off down the shivering corridor. Alexander put his hand in the center of Annie's back and smiled at her, clearly intending to escort her to safety.

Daniel slipped his arm around Jillian's waist as they headed for the ladders that would take them to the deck where their quarters were located. As he pulled her in tight to his side she whispered.

"This is the part where you tell me everything is going to be all right."

"We'll be all right," he said, pressing conviction into his voice and into the way he held her shivering body until he felt the shivering stop.

"Okay," she said, with a tone of '_that's settled then'_ and she put her arm around him too.

(0)


	43. Chapter 43

Sam leaned her head back in the seat, took a breath to clear her head and switched off the ship-to-ship comm.

"You do that again and you'll fry the inertial dampers and we'll both black out," she said.

His reply was short. "Everything still online?"

Sam checked the array of lights and switches in front of her. All green and go.

"Yes," she answered.

There was a pause, a heartbeat of silence broken only by the sound of their breathing. Jack set the 302 up for another strafing run at an enemy ship. Sam took the shot and Jack deftly ducked the debris, wrenching the stabilizers in opposite directions to spin them out of the way.

When he spoke his voice was gruff and tinted with concern. "You okay?"

"Yes," she answered again.

There was another pause, then he said, "You are a rock. You know that. Right?"

He had turned his head slightly when he spoke and she could see the shadowed planes of his ruggedly beautiful face. Sam swallowed the sudden tightness in her throat. Jack rarely let his guard down and when he did it was in the abrupt, offhand way he had just used.

He was such a guy sometimes – all right, _all_ the time. She had always somehow thought that would make him arrogant and thoughtless in bed, lost in his own virility and driven by it. But he wasn't. He was attentive, utterly focused on her, his own pleasure sometimes an afterthought - and she loved that about him.

And _damn_ the man could fly. He flew as if he was a part of the ship, locked in like one its integral systems. He flew like he did this every day; not like he had been walking his missions for the last eight years and now flew a desk.

"Jack, there's two on our six!"

"I see them."

An enemy fighter was right behind them and gaining. Jack banked hard to starboard and flipped them upside down and back towards Prometheus. He streaked towards the 304 with weapons fire ripping past them, barely missing.

"Sir!"

"Hold fire!" Jack ordered.

Sam understood. What he was doing required a precision that couldn't be tampered with. Firing from the 302 right now was a very bad idea.

He waited until they were nearly on top of the Prometheus and then waited a second longer. They were so close now that Sam swore she would see personnel inside the Prometheus through the windows. The ship's designation – painted high on its side – loomed before them like a wall. Jack hit the reverse thrusters, dove and banked starboard again.

The 302 nearly stalled, dropping like a stone for a gut-wrenching moment before Jack got it leveled out. The closest enemy fighter had no time to respond to the maneuver and it rocketed over them into the side of the Prometheus, exploding against the shields in a brief flare of fire and sparkling metal parts.

"Take the other one!" Jack shouted.

Engaging the forward thrusters, Jack wheeled the ship around and raced along the top of the Prometheus, darting from side to side and letting the bigger ships shields absorb the weapons fire. When he reached the tail of the ship he pulled up into a steep skyward climb. As they broke away Sam blasted the other fighter into very small hot pieces.

He set her up for another strafing run and shot between two enemy fighters with only a handful of air molecules between them. They were so taken by surprise that the few shots they got off were ineffective. A moment later there was a brilliant double flash and they were out of the out of the fight for good, thanks to Sam's hand on weapons control.

Jack abruptly tipped the fighter on its starboard side. Three sizzling blades of energy shot by the 302 a hairs breadth away, one nearly taking their portside engine. He dropped the 302 into a series of stomach-twisting spirals as withering patterns of overlapping weapons fire lit up the air they had just vacated. The fighters following them vanished in a blast of fire from the_ Uhane_.

_Damn,_ the man could fly.

"Sam?"

"Yes," she answered as she gave her inner ear a stern mental dressing down. This was really not a good time to get dizzy. "I'm okay. Ummm, where are we going?"

For the first time she noticed that Jack now had them on a trajectory that would take them back out into space. They were screaming towards the void.

"We get out there will you recognize the ship that attacked us – this _Makani_?"

She _hated_ it when he started answering her questions with his own questions. It meant she wasn't going to even get a clue what he was thinking.

"Yes."

"Is it the same class as the ship you toured the other day?"

"Kekao-class heavy cruiser. Yes."

"Do you remember how to get to the Bridge?"

"They didn't show us the Bridge."

"That's not what I asked, Colonel."

"Yes I can get to the Bridge."

"Good."

"So where are we going?"

"Hang on."

"Jack!" She protested.

"Welcome to Special Forces, Colonel," said Brigadier General Jack O'Neill.

(0)


	44. Chapter 44

"Any idea how we're going to get on board?" Sam asked.

"Yes, but not a good one," Jack answered. There was a pause. "You won't like it."

"Does it involve crashing?"

"Probably," Jack answered.

Sam muttered another muffled curse.

"Sir. May I point out that we have no idea how to identify an enemy combatant once we're aboard and no weapons, no C4, no tactical gear at all, not even a pocket knife?"

"Duly noted, Colonel." He paused, "You want to abort?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Then we're go."

"Yes, sir."

"And by the way, Colonel?"

"Yes?"

"I actually do have a pocket knife."

Sam smiled. "Duly noted. Anything else?"

"Shoelaces, half a pack of gum."

"Could come in handy."

From behind him, Sam could see the muscle shift in Jack's jaw that meant he had smiled. They left atmosphere behind them and were suddenly surrounded by stars. There was a cluster of brighter stars at their eleven o'clock and Jack set an erring course for it, hitting the thrusters and heading out at maximum speed. Sam felt a slight pressure on her body and then nothing as the inertial dampeners compensated.

"What's the crew complement?" Jack asked as the lights began to resolve into the shapes of the Mau Lo'an battle fleet.

"A Kekao-class cruiser in orbit has a skeleton crew of fifty. So a worst case scenario is that we face an enemy force that outmans us 25 to 1; after we crash our only means of escape."

"I like how you're looking on the bright side," Jack said. "Can you get Prometheus back on the comm?"

"Yes," Sam answered, flipping switches.

The ships were tubular in shape, slightly smaller than Prometheus. They had a sleek design with weaponry hidden behind panels that opened to bring them to bear only when they were needed. The fleet was currently bristling with open weapons' bays and it formed a ball around a single vessel hovering in the center.

"Go ahead, sir," Sam said.

"Prometheus," Jack said.

"_We're here, General," _It was Prendergast who answered.

"Get me Dr. Jackson," Jack said.

"_I'm right here," _Daniel's voice crackled over the comm.

Jack gave a short, derisive snort. "I thought I told you to go to your quarters and stay there," he said.

"_And I thought we worked that out a long time ago,"_ Daniel answered. "_What do you want, Jack_?"

"I need an update from the Mau Lo'an commander about this mutiny. Have they that got it contained?"

"_You think they're going to give sensitive military information to me_?"

"I think they failed to keep visiting dignitaries safe from a rebel uprising and they better tell me what I want to know," Jack answered.

Sam recognized the tone in Jack's voice. He was angry – angry at the Mau Lo'ans and angry that he had to rely on Daniel to translate the information he needed.

But Jack had always trusted Daniel and he knew that Daniel knew what Jack needed – and that Daniel would get it for him. There was silence on the comm for a short time and Jack used the time to get them closer to the blockade.

"No weapons fire," Jack commented. His voice was now almost sleepy and that was Jack at his most dangerous.

"They either don't know what's happening on the _Makani_ or they do and are holding fire. Either way it's probable they're hoping there are still personnel on board that haven't mutinied. There's no attempt to fire from the _Makani_ and they haven't launched more fighters. But the Mau Lo'ans are still not in charge of whatever is happening on the _Makani."_

Jack grunted, which was his version of high praise. Sam was torn between pleasure and exasperation. At some point Jack was going to stop 'training' her and realize that she wasn't new at this. She was in fact the leader of the SGC's most elite and decorated team; and she hadn't told him anything just now that he didn't already know.

"_Jack?"_ Daniel's voice asked.

"Right here," Jack answered, "What did you find out?"

"_They've got the Makani surrounded and it appears to be a standoff at the moment._"

"That much I already know," Jack replied.

"_What? How can you know that? Where the hell are you?"_

"Getting ready to run the blockade. What else can you tell me?"

There was a hesitation and Sam could clearly tell that Daniel was reining in his temper before answering.

"_The mutineers have the Bridge and the fighter bays. They used a chemical gas to render the crew unconscious and then locked them in the Brig. Kaimano has no information on the number of people in the Brig as opposed to the number of mutineers. There was fifty eight on board at the time of the attack on the Prometheus_._ Jack, what are you _going_ to do?"_

"I'm going to end this," Jack said, then quietly to Sam, "Kill the comm."

It cut off on Daniel's loud, "_Ja-"_

"You're freaking him out," Sam commented.

She got a louder and almost derisive grunt in response. "When you see him remind him that karma is a bitch."

Sam couldn't answer because Jack chose that moment to 'dive' the 302 in a heart-stopping vertical drop through the center of the blockade. In the floating sea of battle cruisers it was unclear whether the small fighter had been spotted. Not taking any chances Jack feinted to port and then bore down on the _Makani._

"Can you warn me before you do that?" Sam asked, trying not to watch as Jack flew 'upside down' beneath the Makani.

"Next time, promise," he said. "Hangar Bay?"

"Two, one on each side. They open like the weapons bays. You'll have to check to see if one or both are open. If they are open the bay still may not be pressurized."

"Okay."

Jack flipped the 302 over in a perfectly executed barrel role and then pivoted in another sharp turn to port. It didn't take long to find the open bay door. Jack did a fly by so close Sam could see their reflection in the shining metal surface of the ship.

"It's open," he commented, unnecessarily.

"And there are people walking around, so it's pressurized."

"Sam?"

"Yes?"

"I said I would warn you next time. So hang on."

As Jack put them in another sharp descent and then hauled the little fighter around and put it on a direct course with the yawning opening of the hangar bay. For Sam it looked smaller than an aircraft carrier floating in the vastness of the open ocean. Jack was coming in at speed and there wasn't going to be any hook to stop them once they made atmosphere and were heading for the back wall of the bay.

'Hang on' would be the least optimal thing she could do. A little less than a microsecond past between Jack aiming for the bay doors and the blackness of space suddenly giving away to the brightly lit and cavernous main hangar. Sam was slammed back in her seat as Jack wrestled with reverse thrusters on full power while dodging Mau Lo'an fighter planes, stacked crates and people who were frantically diving for cover.

The 302 hit the flight deck, bounced and the reverse thrusters screamed as Jack attempted to brake the craft. The rear bulkhead loomed closer and closer. Jack brought the fighter down on the deck with a jaw cracking thud and held it there with what seemed like the force of his own will. The 302 went skidding across the floor with a screech of metal on metal. They slowed with the bulkhead getting more and more imposing, did a shaky half turn and slid to an unsteady halt. Lights and warning chimes went off all over the 302.

"Jack!" Sam said, urgently, "Weapons?"

"You want to fire them in here? Take out a wall and lose the pressure?"

"No, but…."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to. Jack's heartfelt curse told her he had seen. About a half dozen people were emerging from behind cover, approaching across the hangar with weapons raised with intent and purpose. There was nothing but solid bulkhead behind the 302.

"Options?" Sam asked, tensely.

"Only one," Jack's voice was flat. "Surrender."

(0)


	45. Chapter 45

Jack and Sam exited the 302 with their hands in the air in what they hoped was the universal sign of surrender. The weapons pointed at them were wrist-mounted triangles with controls that sat snug in the palm of the hand. Jack had no doubt they were deadly. When Jack and Sam had slipped down the wing of the fighter and were standing on their feet, their captors roughly checked them for weapons and then exchanged a rapid flow of dialogue in their incomprehensible language of words and gestures. Jack caught about every third word of it but not enough to understand. He glanced sidelong at Sam without moving another muscle. She gave him the slightest lift of one shoulder in reply. She hadn't understood either.

They hadn't been shot on sight, which was good. Alive was always good. Two of the Mau Lo'ans moved in behind Jack and Sam and shoved them forward. Jack had not missed the looks the men gave Sam. Silently he cursed. Why did the galaxy seem to be populated by people with dark eyes and dark hair? Sam shown like a diamond in the sun everywhere he took her; and the baggy blue fatigues didn't seem to help at all. It had always been dangerous to go into the unknown. Going into the unknown with a beautiful woman he cared about more than he should had doubled that danger. He supposed that in reality Sam had never been at more risk than any of them. Daniel got just as many speculative looks as Sam; and there was always the captors who wanted nothing more than to humiliate. But Jack was more protective of Sam than he was of the others and if that wasn't fair, it was still a fact.

As they were marched out into the deserted hallways with weapons pointed at the backs, Jack forced his hands open and rotated his wrists to get rid of the tension. He didn't intend to break any of his own bones in the next few minutes.

Sam saw the movement in her peripheral vision and knew what it meant. It was a call to action. Jack's body was relaxed and much too still, considering that he was walking. Sam understood from her own training in hand-to-hand combat that considerable damage could be done to the body by twisting the wrong way in the wrong moment, or the incorrect planting of weight in the face of an oncoming blow. She also knew from seven years in the field with Jack that he protected himself at all times. He was almost skittish about his joints, instinctively shielding knees and wrists and elbows – especially knees.

He was always flexing and bending, never extended too far; always anticipating, as he sensed the oncoming sweep of a weapon his knees would bend ahead of the impact, attenuating the force without technically yielding. Jack never knelt of his own volition, controlling the amount of damage even as he fought.

The man walking beside her was getting ready to move with deadly force. Sam prepared to move with him. Jack could probably take out two armed men on his own but she wasn't going to let him. His shoulders were already up and back but Sam knew the strike wouldn't come until she saw him rise up on the balls of his feet. When that moment came she'd only be half a breath behind him. She almost lost that nanosecond. She was a little stunned by the speed and violence of Jack's attack.

Without a sound Jack pivoted on his left foot and drove his elbow into his captor's face with a force that shattered the bone in the man's nose. He doubled over with an angry cry of pain only to meet Jack's balled fist coming up to impact his jaw. As the man went backwards with the force of the blow Jack kicked his legs out from under him. His head hit the metal deck and he lost consciousness. Jack leaned over and started stripping off the wrist weapon.

In the meantime, Sam had also spun around. She didn't have the height or upper body strength to pull off an elbow to the face with the same effectiveness as Jack. So when she pivoted she also bent over, stepped forward and abruptly stood up, driving her head full force into her captor's jaw, snapping his head back. Stunned he staggered back and Sam used the lesson she had learned watching Jack protect his knees. She leapt off the ground and drove her feet into the man's kneecap and was pretty sure she managed to break it. His brutal holler of pain filled the corridor. Sam didn't pause. She kicked him - hard – in the chin, heard his teeth click together and then watched his body sag as he blacked out. She got his weapon off his wrist and stood up to find Jack sweeping her with an appreciative look.

"Nice," he drawled.

"What now?"

"Bridge," he answered.

"Wouldn't it make sense to get the crew out of the Brig and let them take back the ship?"

"Do you know where the Brig is?"

"No."

"Then we take back the Bridge."

"Just you and I?" Sam said.

"Yep," Jack looked back at their two would-be captors lying bloodied and unconscious on the floor. "I almost feel sorry for whoever is on the Bridge."

They strapped the weapons to their wrists and took a few practice shots at the far wall. Red bolts of energy raced down the hall and sizzled into the bulkhead, leaving charred and smoking streaks where smooth metal had once been. It was louder than Jack had intended though he look suitably impressed as he hustled Sam in the direction of a ladder leading to the next deck up.

They climbed to the next deck and crept into the corridor but it was also deserted. He gave Sam a moment to get her bearings and then surrendered the lead.

Studying the weapons on his wrist, Jack said, "I hope these were in the negotiations."

"After this, maybe it's not too late to work them in," Sam said.

(0)

They climbed their way steadily towards the Bridge and still didn't encounter another breathing soul. It seemed that luck was on their side. There had not been many mutineers, unless they were all on the Bridge and Jack doubted it. It would explain why they had attacked the Prometheus with small fighters and not with the _Makani_ itself.

At last they came out onto the deck Sam said should contain the Bridge. It wasn't hard to find at that point. They could hear loud, excited and angry voices all talking at once coming from just beyond an open door. They crept to the door, took up positions on either side and cautiously peered inside.

There were about seven men in the room, all talking at once and as nearly as Jack could tell it didn't look like it had been a very well planned mutiny after the initial takeover of the ship. He had told Sam to use her weapon only to wound if possible. Now he held her eyes with his own and gave her instructions through a series of silent hand signals.

He wanted her to go in low, to the left and take out as many as possible. He'd take the right.

They moved and chaos erupted in the room. Sam took out two of them with blasts to the leg from her wrist weapon, hoping it would only wound. She felt more than saw the return fire and ducked, diving across the room in a barrel roll that ended with her on one knee firing point blank at the man swinging around to aim at her. He fell back with a shocked cry, went down and stayed there.

Jack in the meantime had come into the room not just firing with startling accuracy but using all the advantage of his height and training. He took down two with the weapon, another by getting in close enough to smash the weapon against the back of the mutineer's skull and the last with a roundhouse left that hit the man's face with the force of a hammer striking an anvil.

The whole thing was over in less than two minutes. The silence that followed was deafening. Jack shut the door and, after a moment of looking, secured the lock.

"You have any idea where the comm is?" he asked.

"Give me a minute," she answered. She had already sat down in a chair that had the biggest console in front of it, assuming it must be some kind of central control.

"Get me Daniel if you can."

"Okay."

A moment later Sam had the Prometheusonline and was asking for Daniel.

"_Jack!" _There was a panicked frantic sense of relief in Daniel's voice.

"Tell Commander Kaimano to have the fleet stand down. Sam and I have the Bridge of the _Makani_."

"_You what_?"

"You heard me. Now tell him. Ask him how he wants to get on board to take over and offer him the Asgard beam if he wants."

"_Okay, hang on_."

While they were waiting waiting, Jack strolled almost casually over to stand in front of Sam and leaned over the console, resting on his elbows.

Sam looked up at him. "What?"

Jack grinned and let all the love and hot desire he felt show in his eyes.

"Do you have any idea how sexy you are right now?" He asked in a voice thick with lust and bordering on laughter.

She leaned up a little so that they were almost kissing.

"Sir, she said, softly, "Not in front of the prisoners."

"Oh," Jack said, going along with it, "How about later?"

"You gotta deal," she said and this time their lips did brush, tenderly and full of promise.

Daniel's voice interrupted, "_Jack?"_

"Go ahead, Daniel," Jack said.

"_All right, this is what Kaimano wants to do….."_

(0)


	46. Chapter 46

Daniel picked up the length of tanned animal hide and ran it through his hands. It was soft, supple, exquisitely made and as far as he was concerned there just wasn't enough of it. He looked at Ka'eo over the rim of his glasses. His eyes were all wide and innocent, eyebrows raised in a way that was almost childlike, a way that most people wouldn't – or possibly couldn't – argue with. He exuded an innate quality of good that drew people to him, Jack had watched Daniel off world for seven years. Dragged him around with that innocent face and a mouth that could use words like a stiletto; watched him piss off half the people they met and make the other half want to take him home and sometimes there was an overlap in that Venn diagram.

"No," Daniel said, as calmly and politely as he could manage. There was an edge of iron-willed stubbornness in the voice that Jack recognized.

"No?" Jack repeated, looking stunned, "You're our word guy and the best you can come up with is 'no'?"

Daniel turned that innocent look on Jack. "What were you going to say?" he asked.

"I was going to say 'Oh _hell_ no'." Jack answered emphatically. He hadn't gotten within spitting distance of the folded pieces of suede. He was in fact eyeing them as if it was possible the animal they had come from would suddenly rise up and attack. Not much chance of that, Daniel knew. These had come from the local equivalent of domesticated cattle.

"I do not understand your objections, O'Neill," Teal'c said.

Jack turned to him with the stunned expression permanently fixed on his face. "You wouldn't," he admitted, "Since a _loincloth_ was basically part of your armor for a hundred years."

Jack swore he saw a wicked twinkle in the Jaffa's dark eyes before Teal'c looked away, choosing a length of suede and wrapping it around his waist to check for length. It ended just above his knee.

Teal'c had arrived two days earlier, summoned by Jack to help root out the dissenting group and bring them to justice. He had come with Ishta, in sufficient warrior dress and attitude to impress the Mau Lo'ans about Earth's other allies. Conversely Jack had been impressed by the Mau Lo'ans information gathering agencies and how much they learned about the dissident group and how quickly they learned it. They had either been willing to share this information with the Tau'ri because of the recent attacks – or been very much convinced of the wisdom of doing so by the presence of the very large and very imposing Jaffa scowling at them over Jack's shoulder.

The raids on the various 'safe' houses and hiding places had gone off simultaneously and without a hitch, with SG1 – _all _of SG1 as it had been at the start – right in the middle of taking down the leadership. It felt good to Jack. It felt _right._

With the dissidents in custody the Treaty had gone forward. The signing was set for the following morning to be followed by a three day celebration feast –

Which brought them to this moment. Their guide had rather delightedly come to their palatial quarters with the garb that was traditional feast wear. The men were aghast. The women were picking through the outfits trying to decide what color they liked.

At Daniel's firm and polite no and Jack's even more firm pronouncement, Ka'eo had looked at first confused and then concerned.

"It is our tradition. To return to the early days….."

"Ka'eo," Jillian interrupted, "Could you leave us alone with the men for a moment?"

Ka'eo hesitated, then nodded and left the common room, quietly shutting the door.

Jillian looked at Daniel. "Do you have any idea how hot you'd look in that?"

"Do you have any idea how cold I'd be in that?" he countered.

"Daniel, it's eighty-two degrees at midnight here," she answered.

"Jill," he sounded a little desperate, like a man who knew he was about to lose an argument with his wife. "It's a _loincloth._"

"I think you're supposed to wear the shell necklaces too," Sam pointed out, helpfully, "Oh and the belt with the shells and feathers."

"Right," Daniel said, "because that will make it so much warmer."

"I don't know, I think this could be fun," Sam commented. She was holding a strip of fuchsia cloth that was the sole upper body covering. Jillian had one in a lovely shade of coral.

Daniel and Jack both eyed the slender pieces of material.

"Yeah," Jack said, "It could come in handy if we need to _floss_."

"It's not that small," Sam said, shaking her head at him.

"It's not that big either," Daniel said. He sighed and indicated the loincloths. "And neither are these."

"Come on, Daniel, whatever happened to 'anthropologists do it all the time. They dress and live as the people they're studying'," Sam asked.

Daniel sighed heavily. "I'm never going to hear the end of that am I?"

"Nope," Sam said, congenially. She picked up a saucy skirt made of woven grass dyed red and held them up in front of her, "I like the pink one but what do you think of the red one or the black?"

"I think Annie should wear the red one," Jillian said," and Ishta would look stunning in the black."

"Indeed." Teal'c agreed.

"Really?" Ishta asked, picking up and holding the waistband of the skirt against her hips experimentally.

Exasperated to his breaking point, Jack said, "I think no one is wearing anything but their own clothes!"

"I think Sam has a point," Jillian said.

"I do?"

"Yes. From a cultural standpoint this is important to our new allies and we should show a willingness to live and dress as they 'eo made it sound as if this was important."

"Actually that was Daniel's point, not mine," Sam said.

"And I'm not an anthropologist!" Jack said.

Sam gave him a wicked look and said, "Today you are." Then she turned back to the mirror as she and Ishta held up the fuchsia and black garb for a close scrutiny.

Jack glared at Sam's turned back, caught Daniel's eye and mouthed, '_today you are' _with an aggravated smart-ass eye roll.

Daniel looked past him at Jillian. "_C'est comme si ils sont déjà maries."_

She nodded. "_Oui, j'ai remarqué que_."

"Something you two want to share with the class?" Jack demanded.

"No," Daniel answered, bluntly, "You?"

Jack managed to give him an innocent look that was not quite as convincing as Daniel's own.

"Daniel," Jillian said. There was warning in her voice.

During the recent trip SG1 had taken to Jack's Minnesota cabin, Sam had broken down and admitted to Jillian that she and Jack were finally together. Daniel had then guessed. Jillian had sworn him to secrecy but Daniel had been baiting Jack ever since they had returned; and Jillian was getting tired of it.

A muscle in Daniel's jaw twitched. He liked baiting Jack. He could do it in his sleep and he hated secrets and lies.

The girls went back to trying on bandeau tops and grass skirts over their BDUs, chattering happily and exchanging colors. The men remained silent for a few minutes until Jack said, "We're going to wind up wearing these things aren't we?"

Daniel sighed. "Oh yeah, we are."

(0)

C'est comme si ils sont déjà maries – it's as if they are already married.

Oui, j'ai remarqué que – Yes, I noticed that

Bonus points to anyone who can name the episode Sam is referencing.


	47. Chapter 47

They had once again worn their formal wear to the actual Treaty signing – Jack and Sam and the other members of the Air Force in their dress blues, Jillian in a dress conservative enough for church, he in his sharpest black suit. Teal'c and Ishta had opted for Jaffa robes. (Knowing the Jack who liked to wear t-shirts purchased sometime in the mid-80s and was more comfortable in his BDus made it all the more striking to watching him now – ramrod straight and sober as a judge, every inch the Air Force General and representative of his government.)

But all formality was dismissed as the evening approached and the expansive gardens of the government complex were opened for the feast. It was typical of a South Pacific luau, with low tables and seating on blankets and pillows. The women were resplendent on every possible color in the visible spectrum, and Daniel thought, especially the women of the SGC. The vivid colors of their native garb suited them. Their only accessories were rings of flowers around their wrists and ankles and a circlet of leaves worn like a crown. The only adjustment they had made to any of their costumes was a sash of brightly patterned material that Ishta was wearing from her right shoulder to her left hip. Teal'c had a matching sash wrapped around his waist because no one really felt like trying to explain a symbiote pouch to the Mau Lo'ans.

Daniel had learned on his honeymoon that, while his wife had been born and raised in England and lived all over the world, her soul must have been born on a tropical island. She wore the native garb as naturally as he had worn his Abydonian robes; and though she was pregnant no one could tell yet.

Except Daniel who was too familiar with her lovely, long-limbed body not to see that it was somehow fuller already, even more feminine. If it was possible he was even more in love with her now – now that this incredible aura of ethereal magic surrounded her. He'd bought her a stack of books about pregnancy and birth and the first year of childhood. She had set them aside, kissed him and said, "I'd rather just count the weeks and surrender to whatever this is going to be and make love to you." The books were still unopened on the coffee table downstairs.

Since the moment he had seen her in the coral colored grass skirt, floral bracelets and strapless top he'd been flooded with desire – and it was going to be hours before he could do anything about it. He had reached for her hand, speechless. She had rekindled his life from the cold ashes it had been and it was reinforced over and over every time he caught fire for her. The hot look she swept him with almost stopped his heart and made him wonder at the ability of this knee length loincloth to keep everyone from knowing exactly what it was he wanted.

All the men, including Alexander North but with the exception of Jack had submitted to the single wrap of cloth around their hips, rings of vines around their wrists and ankles and. Jack had either flatly refused or lost his on the way to the garden. He was also the only man at the dinner wearing a t-shirt with the loincloth. But he said if Teal'c could add the sash to his clothing then he, Jack, could add a t-shirt.

Daniel quickly discovered that he wasn't the only man from the SGC to be feeling a little possessive of his female partner, though what Alexander North thought of his daughter's current dress (or lack of it) Daniel couldn't begin to guess. Scotty was practically glued to Annie – who was dazzling in her bright red outfit. Jack had taken up a place under a tree with both hands wrapped around a carved wooden mug. He had not taken his eye off Sam, even if he was trying to look like he wasn't the least bit interested in where she was. Daniel had been on too many covert operations with Jack not to exactly where the man was looking at any given time.

Only Teal'c didn't seem overly concerned about Ishta; perhaps because there was no official declaration of any kind between them or perhaps because he knew Ishta could eviscerate any man who attempted an unwanted advance. When Daniel was briefly separated from Jillian, only to find her a bit later chatting with a small group of locals. Her lovely hands were moving to indicate she was speaking the native language. In Daniel's opinion, the men in the group were all looking a bit too fascinated by her.

He was starting to join them when Teal'c intercepted him, blocking the way like an avalanche on a highway.

"She loves you," the Jaffa said without preliminary, "You are the sun that lights her from within. Without you she is nothing but shadow."

The message had at first gone straight over Daniel's head. "I know," he said, impatiently.

"Then you should not take any actions to indicate that you do not trust that love."

This time the message penetrated. He blinked and looked at Teal'c, which required dragging his hungry gaze away from Jillian.

"I kind of feel sorry for them now," Daniel said.

"Indeed," Teal'c said, "There is only one man she will leave here with tonight, and that is you."

With a slight inclination of his head Teal'c had moved away to join O'Neill.

The feast began in the late afternoon and the food was amazing. With Alexander's help they knew which drinks were alcoholic and which ones weren't and not surprisingly Jack settled on something deep gold and frothy that was the local beer.

The night fell and the party became lit with candlelight, torches and the rising moon. From around the edges of the celebration drummers appeared and a cheer went up from the locals. Ka'eo went to Sam and whispered something to Sam, who then went to round up the rest of the SGC. Jillian was sitting beside Daniel at the time so Sam explained to both of them at the same time,

"They want to know if we want to join in the dancing. Annie, Ishta and the Whytes said yes. Teal'c said maybe. Scotty and Keeper said no. General O'Neill said hell no."

Daniel snorted. "Not surprising," he said.

But Jillian was already starting to get up. He caught her hand. Even with the flickering torchlight reflecting back in his glasses Jillian could see the concern.

"It's just dancing, Daniel. I'm not going to free climb a mountain," she said to reassure him.

He hesitated and he felt the way her hand tightened on his.

"Okay," he relented, before the fight could start. "Just, have mercy on me and don't do anything strenuous."

"You're not going to dance with me?" She seemed surprised.

"I don't think they're going to be waltzing, Jillian," Daniel pointed out, "This isn't the Broadmoor on Friday night."

Jillian smiled, leaned over and kissed him.

"Have fun," he said.

The girls vanished into the darkness at the edge of the celebration and the men of the SGC gathered at the same low table and settled down on the grass mats. Jack arrived last with a pitcher of beer and enough mugs for everyone.

"So what are we going to be seeing now?" Jack asked, taking a long swallow from his mug.

"Something on the order of a hula, I suspect," Daniel answered,

Jack paused before he took another drink. "Really?"

"The hula?" Scotty asked. "Annie's told me a little bit about the history of the hula. The dance was designed to honor the gods and to preserve their history. Originally it was performed topless, which of course the first European explorers found scandalous."

"It was performed _what?_" Jack asked.

Scotty seemed to suddenly remember who he was seated with.

"Sorry, sir," Scotty said, "I'm sure that's not the case here and anyway none of our personnel would…. I mean, I don't think…."

"Captain!" Jack snapped.

"Yes, General, sir!" Scotty snapped back, his spine straightening.

"Stop talking and drink your beer."

"Yes, sir," Scotty said and raised his mug to comply.

A moment later an older man and woman wearing traditional garb walked out into the open area between the tables. The woman raised a conch shell and blew four long mournful notes, turning as she did to face each of the four directions. The man then beat his tall staff on the ground four times and then began a slow chant accompanied by hand signs that had become familiar if still not understandable. Every eye at the table turned towards Daniel.

"Ummm," Daniel's gaze riveted on the man. "He's welcoming us as new friends and powerful allies, celebrating us coming through the Gate and opening a galaxy of possibilities for the Mau Lo'an people…. He invites us now to see the story of how they came here and defeated their warlord masters."

When the man stopped chanting a new sound could be heard from the darkness – an insistent clapping of heavy sticks. It accompanied the arrival of about twenty dancers, male and female, all wearing vivid yellow. They came in using a rhythmic two step march, hips swaying in time to the clapping of the sticks in their hands. Their voices were raised in another chant, not quite a song, but a more lyrical utterance of their language.

Daniel stopped translating. It was not the kind of performance that welcomed outside noise. Even without being able to understand all the words, the audience was drawn in, caught by the cadence and the beautiful movements of the dancers as they moved as one unit across the grass. The dance transcended language barriers.

Jack leaned over and softly asked Daniel, "Where are the girls?"

Daniel gave him a puzzled sideways look for a moment and then said, "Oh! You mean our girls. Sam? Jillian?"

"Yes," Jack hissed.

"This is a choreographed dance, probably taught to them from infancy as part of their oral tradition. They wouldn't have taught this to any of us," Daniel explained

"Then where are they?" Jack asked.

"I'm sure they're just waiting until the floor is cleared and they invite us to join in."

When the dance finally ended the group turned towards their visitors and bowed from the waist. Alexander North and said some very nice things about their hosts and how honored they were by the offering of the dance, which Daniel quietly translated for the benefit of everyone at their table. Then the dancers left the open space, marching and clapping their batons together accompanied by the applause of the audience. The woman blew on the conch shell and the man invited everyone to join them in celebratory dance. The drummers who had until now been waiting quietly began to beat an urgent frantic rhythm. From the edges of the gathering people poured into the space and began to dance, free form, something earthy and free. It took the men from the SGC less than thirty seconds to find the women they were looking for. It took several seconds longer for them to find their voices.

"Are they….?" Scotty asked.

"Well they aren't topless at least," Daniel managed.

"But they are…."

"Wearing some kind of body oil?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah," Scotty breathed.

"They weren't that shiny when they left, it must be a part of the celebration," Daniel reached for the beer mug - that he had not touched until now – and took a healthy swallow.

"Oh," Scott exhaled again, "This could be really interesting."

Eyes riveted on his wife, Daniel drank again and said, "It already is."

(0)


	48. Chapter 48

Jack was good at stealth. Possibly not as good as he was at blowing things up but still considered an expert at slipping away in and out of shadows when the need arose for it. When he realized that he didn't want to be one of the men staring slack-jawed, stunned and more than slightly aroused as the woman he loved danced in the firelight he took advantage of the distraction to quietly leave the table and find a dark secluded hiding place.

Seven years of Gate travel, seven years of being in each other's lives on an almost constant basis and who knew that Sam could do _that_?

Certainly he had not.

She had told him that she'd started a new workout routine with Jillian and Annie that involved dancing. But Jack had been flashing back to the aerobics craze of the 80s – something jerky and cardio that involved a lot of jumping around.

Not something that looked like vertical sex.

Not what Sam was currently doing, shining in the firelight, laughing, sometimes with her head thrown back in delicious abandon.

Considering that Jack had been more than slightly aroused just from the native garb Sam had chosen to wear, now he was starting to suffer in earnest. In fact, considering the length of the dinner he was fast approaching the point where the TV commercials recommended seeking medical attention.

He should have felt guilty for watching her from the shadow of the grove of palm trees and heavy ferns at the edge of the dance space. He didn't spy on his own team, for gods' sake. He didn't spy on her. He had long suspected there were too many others who did spy on SG1 but he wasn't one of them. But at the moment, and for her own good, he couldn't be caught staring at her openly so this was the best he could do under the circumstances.

There was an advantage to being part of a recognized couple. Jack understood this. None of the men danced too close to Jillian or Annie – or god forbid too close to Ishta. He wasn't sure what Scott Lawrence would do if someone bothered Annie. Daniel would be all over the man who got too close to Jillian and it would look like a snake strike, no warning. Teal'c well, honestly Teal'c would probably just stand and smile while Ishta took care of the problem on her own.

But there was an undeclared open season on Sam apparently. He couldn't eviscerate some poor local just for looking at her or dancing too close in much too suggestive ways. But Jack was quickly reaching the point where he just couldn't _stand this _anymore. His hand was shaking so hard he couldn't finish his beer, which just sucked.

He was close to being paralyzed in a state of agonizing arousal just watching her fire-drenched body moving to the drums; torn between not wanting to ever stop watching her and marching our on the dance floor, taking her hand and dragging her off into some private shadowed place with him. If he had to stand here in this state of indecision for much longer he was going to just fucking lose it.…

_Duty honor responsibility sacrifice good of the planet good of the program….._

Fuck that, he was _dying_ here and they had already crossed the line anyway and he was going to DC in a month so who knew how many times they would have to be together before that.

Jack stood up straight and drained the last of the ale of the mug in his hand. They had walked each other safely from one side of a battlefield to another. Getting from one side of dance floor to another shouldn't be a problem. Decision made he walked out of the shadows, dropped the mug on the first serving tray he came to and began weaving in and out of the dancers.

He didn't exactly grab her hand. In fact he didn't touch her at all. Sam turned before he had quite reached her, always aware of him and where he was. She didn't turn all the way, just enough to look at him over her shoulder. It was devastating. She had to know that particular view of her was his favorite. With that much skin showing and her hips moving in an ancient rhythm it was his undoing.

Jack leaned in close to her ear, though he kept his body back from hers, maintaining a civilized distance.

"Come with me," he said.

He walked towards her with his back to most of the torches so now it was cast in shadow. His eyes were always unfathomable in the dark. His tone was not. It was sultry, the intent unmistakable. In the fire lit half of her face that he could see, there was a brief narrowing of her eyes and brow, the momentary reaction of resistance to being ordered around outside of the battlefield. So he added, "Please."

She turned to look at him fully and now her eyes were unwavering, her head tilted a little, thrown back just a little as if she would still defy him just for a moment. But he could see the pulse beating rapidly in her throat. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were almost black in the flickering darkness.

Jack turned around and began to walk away, knowing she would follow him. He made for the same shadowed shelter of palms and ferns that he had just left, waited until she was safely hidden from view along with him and then caught her in his arms. He nudged her face up to meet his with his cheek and then covered her mouth, claiming it. One hand strayed down her back, caressing the length of her spine until he stopped just below the band wrapped around her hips. It fisted a tight handful of grass skirt over the smooth curves of her bottom and pushed her up against him.

Sam's mouth came alive under his, hungry, seeking. She offered her tongue on a gasp and low moan and Jack accepted it on a hot wet slide of his own. They gasped and groaned and sucked and pressed deep. He let Sam go for a moment, rested his forehead on hers and panted. Then he took a breath as if he was going underwater before he pushed her mouth open again, before she was done catching her breath, twisting his head, pressing their lips together, His tongue sliding in and out, up and back and down in a long, rolling frantic kiss. Sam's kiss, conversely, softened, until it was pliable, yielding, accepting, until she was his.

"Carter," Jack gasped, thick and wet, pulling back, trying to swallow and kiss and breathe and talk all at once. "Carter ... _fuck_ ... _jeezus, fuck_."

Sam smiled a little. He only called her 'Carter' in that voice was he was out of his mind with desire; and then it sounded just like 'baby', 'honey', 'sweetheart' - different than the way he said it in any other context. He was holding her so tightly she couldn't have gotten away from him without causing them both serious damage. She should have felt trapped. Instead she felt wanted and protected.

"I thought that was the idea," she said, on a throaty growl.

"It _is_," he said, "But not like this, not up against a tree on the edge of a public party. Not like that."

She moved to get up on tiptoe and he let go enough to allow the movement. She nipped at his jaw, sucked the vulnerable skin below it. It was very gentle, nothing that would leave a mark but it went straight to his throbbing groin. He bent a little and lifted his chin, giving her better access. She sucked a little lower, worked her way to the points of his collar bone and the hollow in between.

"Then let's go back to my room; or yours. I don't care. Just don't climb over the balcony again. You just about gave me a heart attack last time."

Jack's eyes were closed. Sam rolled her hips against him. The touch, even through heavy cloth and thick skirt, was electric.

"_Stop,"_ he groaned, "Christ, Sam, if you do that again I'm going to go off in my shorts. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've done that?"

"Can it be calculated in decades?" she asked. "Give me a hint and I can do the math in my head."

"At least one of us can still think," he said, seeking her mouth again. The kiss was less frantic this time.

"I can think of quite of few things I'd like to be doing to you, preferably in a bed. Things like this, only lower," she sucked a little harder on his throat.

"_Shut up,"_ Jack moaned piteously. "God help me, Sam, I'm so turned on I can't _breathe."_

She wriggled and he let her go.

"Come on. We can walk back together. No one will even notice."

Jack shook his head. "Someone will notice."

"Wow," she said, "You can take the guy out of Special Forces….."

"Who says?" he interrupted.

She smiled, a little wickedly. Then she took his hand and drew him out of the shadows, letting go of his hand as they came back into the light. They walked side by side towards the main lobby of their building.

"Daniel and Jillian left a while ago," Jack told her, "I saw them leave."

"I doubt they're hanging out in the common room having coffee," Sam observed.

Jack grunted. "Lawrence and Annie left just before I came to get you."

"They probably went back to Prometheus."

Jack nodded. She was right.

The ride in the elevator was torture. The few feet that separated them felt continental.

The common room was mercifully empty. Jack turned, swept her with a long appreciative look.

"You are the hottest thing I've ever seen in my life in that outfit. You know that right?"

"Just in this outfit?" She asked, a little mischievously.

He laughed and then hauled her into his arms, knocking the breath out of her. "Come here," he growled.

He kissed her and untied the knot in the middle of her back, pulled away the fabric. Sam made a small choked sound and then her hands were scrambling to drag his shirt of his waistband. She stopped, suspended for a moment when he slipped a hand between them and found her breast. Squeezed, fondled, teased, rubbed, circled. He drank in her moans, the shiver that trembled down her spine.

_God,_ how he wanted her. He wanted to get in her so deep and make her come so hard that she forgot there had ever been anyone else and all she could think about was him. He wanted her. He wanted to mark her, make her his and his alone. He wanted to _own_ her.

He had to let go of her so she could get his shirt over his head. It hit the floor somewhere beside the bright fuchsia strip of fabric she had just been wearing. Blind with lust the touch of her naked body to his chest nearly sent Jack over the edge. He reached down and swept up his shirt and her top from the floor and then started backing her towards the doors on the other side of the room.

"Bedroom," he said.

Clinging, touching, kissing they found his door first. Jack reached around behind her and hit the control to open it. It slid silently open, they tumbled inside and Jack sealed it behind them. Loincloth and skirt hit the floor at the same time. Briefs and panties followed. Jack spun her across the room until they hit the bed and fell across it in a tangle of hands and arms and legs and seeking lips. Then Jack went to work in earnest, licking and mouthing, engulfing and sucking, stroking, petting, caressing until Sam's hands were clawing the sheets Jack's name had turned into a blur of gasps and she was more turned on than she had been in days, wet and swollen.

Breathing on her, gentle movements of his tongue his fingers stroking the inside of her thigh…

With a low helpless groan, Sam put her foot against his shoulder and pushed him back, reaching down to grasp his arm and pull him up, trying to slide under him at the same time. Her whole body welcomed him as he thrust inside in one hard movement, until he was groin-deep and thick and holding her tight. She buried her face in his neck, let out a sudden sharp sob and started to climax.

"Yeah," Jack breathed in a low satisfied growl. His strokes got longer, smoother and deeper. His body controlled hers, riding the waves. Sam clung to him helplessly and let Jack have her. It was involuntary. Orgasm melted her, merged her into Jack until they were one. Jack surged into it, fiercely, taking her - taking charge of what belonged to him, exulting in it, knowing how hard it would make her come, knowing that this was how to make her come. Taking possession of her made her wild so he did it on purpose because he loved her and she was his.

Mercurial ecstasy rose up in him, surged through every muscle in his body. The outside world dissolved into nothing as his dark eyes slid closed. They were shaking apart inside and around each other. Sam was crying out over and over in a kind of shock, hands gripping his arms, legs locked around his hips. She lifted up and drove him deeper and Jack shot, hard and fierce and with animal immediacy deep in in the silken embrace of her body.

Soldered to her, molten heat, flesh to flesh, heart to heart…

He didn't quite collapse on top of her, managing somehow to slide sideways and land with his arm over her, their legs still tangled. He could feel her breathing in slow, deep gasps, gusting soft against his neck. He lifted his head and found her forcing her eyes open to look up at him and smile.

They kissed, rubbed noses and foreheads and cheeks, smiled again. Jack laughed softly.

They spent the next hour toying with each other, feasting on each other's arousal and subsequent climaxes, sometimes laughing like teenagers, sometimes groaning like the damned until they were wrung dry and exhausted.

Sprawled across Jack like a casualty of war Sam murmured, "My _god, _Jack, did you _take_ something before bringing me up here?"

Ruffling his fingers through her disheveled, sweat-drenched hair Jack snorted. "Yeah. I took one look at you oiled, half-naked and dancing. Are you trying to kill me, doing something like that?"

Her smile was slightly wicked again but she snuggled back down with her head in the hollow of his shoulders and her fingers trailing up and down the damp valley of his chest.

"I want to stay here tonight," she said. Her voice had gotten sleepy. Post-orgasm endorphins were now coasting through both of them like the tide.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he wasn't letting her climb over the balcony railings but then thought she might consider it a dare so he bit that back as fast as his thoughts had conjured it.

It was quite late at night. If she left to walk into the common room and go the short distance to her room no one would notice.

But he didn't want her to go.

"Consequences," he slurred, softly.

"Screw them," she sighed.

"So stay," he murmured, shifting into a slightly more comfortable position, arranging one pillow so they could share it.

"'Kay," she said, snuggling down.

Jack managed a soft kiss on her forehead and to hold back sleep until the rhythm of her breathing and the sweet weight of her body told him she was asleep.

In the morning, there would be daylight and other people. But right now there was nothing but the night and the two of them and so for a little while the world was a beautiful and perfect place.

(0)


	49. Chapter 49

Having spent most of his adult life on the move and on different planets, much less different time zones (provided that he wasn't in fear for his life or the life of someone he loved or disturbed by a nightmare), Daniel woke after six hours no matter what time it was in the morning. In the days before Jillian that had often meant he was up before dawn. Now he was just a likely to wake up, find that it was still dark and turn to his wife thinking _I'll stay if you want me to, please always want me to._ He would gather her into his arms and she would nestle close and he would go back to sleep.

The morning after the feast he woke up first to the first pale gray light that signaled the night's end. He started to get up but Jillian made a soft, disappointed noise so he settled back down again. The next time he opened his eyes the room was flooding with bright yellow light and Jillian was slipping back into bed with him, coming back from a trip to the bathroom.

He smiled and ignored the fact that he should probably get up and find the bathroom too. There was time. He wanted her back in his arms for a moment. She was still tousled and her body still felt sleep-heavy as she settled back down with a sigh.

They didn't speak at first. The love in her eyes was breathtaking. For a moment his chest hurt and he had to swallow the ache in his throat. Under the light sheet his hand found hers and touched the only thing she was wearing – her wedding ring. It was soothing, comforting. Jillian reached up and stroked her thumb over his jaw, over the sandpaper-fine early morning beard shadow.

"Let this grow," she said.

Daniel lifted both eyebrows and looked amused. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." It was a purr, throaty, happy. She tilted her head and looked up at him hopefully. "You told me once that you would, when you didn't go off world any more. You said it was too much trouble to maintain in the field but now….. Now we're going to Atlantis, so we'll be closing up the house and tying up loose ends for a month and then three weeks to Atlantis and then, I hope, days and days spent in the library there."

He cut her off by putting a finger over her lips.

"Okay," he said.

"Really?"

He laughed a little. "Considering what you're doing for me right now, for _us_? Yeah, I think 'not shaving' is a pretty simple thing for you to ask from me."

The delight in her forest green eyes warmed him to his soul. He held her for a bit longer until he realized she was falling back to sleep.

"Jill?"

"Hm?"

"I'm going to get up now."

"Hmmm."

He waited until she was asleep and slipped gingerly out from under and around her, fixed the sheet over her shoulder. He kissed her on the forehead, mindful of using just his lips and avoiding the scratchy stubble.

He showered and didn't shave, dressed, checked on her one more time and then went out into the common room. The only occupant was Teal'c, though it was obvious from the banquet spread out on the center table that their breakfast had been delivered not too long ago. Teal'c was piling a selection of bread, cheese and fruit onto a platter.

"Who else is back from the party?" Daniel asked.

"You and I, presumably Jillian is with you, Ishta is still sleeping. There is movement and sound from O'Neill's room but none of the others."

"Where is Sam?" Daniel was suddenly alarmed.

"I believe she is in the room with O'Neill," Teal'c said, blandly.

Daniel stopped in midstride slack-jawed. "What?"

Teal'c reached into his back pocket and pulled out a strip of fuchsia colored fabric.

"I found this on the floor in front of his door."

Daniel and Teal'c shared a long, conversational look at the end of which Daniel exhaled slowly and said, "Wow."

(0)

Jack stood in the middle of the room between the bed and the door and said, "So what do you want to do?"

Sam was seated on the bed wearing yesterday's hot pink lace panties and one of Jack's t-shirts. Jack was finding this almost as sexy as the skirt and bandeau top from the night before but Sam's mind was on other things.

"I want to get a shower and get dressed," she answered.

He gestured towards his bathroom door. "There's a shower in there that you can play basketball in. I plan to take one. We could take one together."

"I know," she said, "But I can't use your soap! It dries my skin and I'll smell like you all day."

He gestured to the front door. "I can go get stuff from your room."

"Yeah, that won't look at all suspicious."

Jack sighed and resisted scratching at his wet hair. They had seriously overslept and now they weren't sure what to do about getting Sam back to her own room.

"Just look out there and see who is awake. It's still early." Sam suggested.

Jack went to the front door, opened it cautiously and peered out.

Daniel and Teal'c were seated on the couch that ran perpendicular to his door. They both looked up curiously. Daniel had an electronic notebook balanced on his knee and a mug of the local coffee in his hand. Teal'c was eating.

"Morning," Jack said, holding the door against his body to block the view into the room.

"Morning," Daniel agreed, with feigned cheerfulness.

"Anyone else awake?" Jack asked, conversationally.

"No, no. Just me and Teal'c," Daniel answered.

"Okay," Jack said, and then shut the door quickly so he missed the speculative look that passed between Teal'c and Daniel.

Sam looked up at him.

"It's just Daniel and Teal'c. No one else is here or up yet."

Sam sighed and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. She was being indecisive and she hated it.

"What do you think?" Jack asked softly.

She looked up, sapphire eyes haunted. Jack made an aggravated noise in his throat. "Come on. I can _hear_ you thinking. Just talk."

"Those two men are my best friends."

"Same here."

"I trust them with my life. I trust them with _your_ life. I'm closer to them than I've ever been to family."

"Same here."

"We've kept all this from them to protect them."

"Yes."

"But I'm not sure there's anything we need to protect them _from_ anymore. Teal'c is leaving to be with the Free Jaffa Nation and that's exactly what he should be doing. Daniel is going to Atlantis at the request of the Langford-Littlefield Foundation and _no one_ can argue with that; not even you."

Jack frowned. That was also true. He just didn't have to like it.

"So?" He prompted when she stopped.

"They won't betray us."

"They haven't so far," Jack agreed.

"You think they know."

"Neither of them is stupid. What are you trying to talk yourself into here, Sam?"

She sighed and looked at her hands for a while. Then she looked up and met his eyes with unwavering certainty. She was so much in love with Jack, with this man who had survived every blow life had dealt him; who still challenged the world to accept him on his own terms. Sometimes he did that with acerbic biting humor and sometimes as a warrior born and bred. But either way she loved him.

Unable to tell the rest of the world, she suddenly fiercely wanted to tell the other people in her life that she loved.

"I want to tell them." She stated it bluntly. "It doesn't feel right now, when we're all going our separate ways. I don't want anything secret or left unsaid among the four of us. They should know."

She saw the concern fade out of Jack's eyes and knew the decision was made for both of them.

"So let's go," Sam said, jumping up off the bed and heading passed him to the door.

Jack caught her arm. "Wait. Wait. Dressed like that?"

Sam looked down at the oversized t-shirt. "They've seen me in less."

Jack made a gesture in the air as if he was trying to pull what he wanted to say out of the air. "The ….. context is…. Different."

"I could walk out there dressed in a nun's habit and they'd still know what we did," Sam said, shaking her head.

Jack nodded though he still looked reluctant. Driven by an instinct to protect her as old as time, he got between Sam and the door, blocked her from going any further and slowly opened it again.

Teal' and Daniel both looked up again. Jack hesitated and then stepped aside, pushing the door open wider. Sam moved from behind him to his side and stood looking uncertainly at the rest of their team.

For a moment no one spoke. Then Daniel held his hand out to Teal'c, who produced a long strip of fuchsia fabric from somewhere behind him. Daniel held it up.

"You dropped this," he said.

Sam felt heat rise up into her face and knew she was blushing the same color as her outfit from the previous night. Jack also seemed to turn ruddier under his tan. But the mild embarrassment was bearable. In fact it was hardly anything after what they had been through for eight years. There were greater emotions flooding Sam, and from the profound look on Jack's face, him too.

While they had been in Jack's room debating whether or not to tell their secret to the two people they trusted most in the world, Daniel and Teal'c had been out in the common room guarding that secret unasked.

The sense of gratitude and love that filled Sam was not something that could be put into words. Jack was also speechless bt he swallowed tightly.

Sam walked over to Daniel and took her top back from him. She couldn't quite help the silly, goofy affectionate smile that pulled at her lips.

"I'm, ummm, gonna go take a shower," she said, backing away from them in the direction of her room.

"Okay," Daniel said. It was obvious he was trying very hard not to smile back.

She turned and disappeared behind her own door. Daniel and Teal'c looked back at Jack. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"Uh, me too," he said.

Jack sealed the door and leaned back against it for a moment. Whatever Teal'c and Daniel said after that, Jack never knew.

(0)

Sam came out a while later wearing jeans and a t-shirt and fluffing her hair with a towel. She paused and took in the room. Its only occupant was now Daniel. He didn't move or say anything, though they shared a brief look. There was still a smile in his eyes that bordered on laughter. He went back to reading, sipping at the liquid in his mug. Sam went to get some food from the buffet. He let her eat in silence. His presence was calm, accepting and Sam could feel herself relaxing in it. It was something unspoken they had always depended on Daniel to do – be at home anywhere, in any situation no matter how off-kilter; and help them all feel the same way.

She finished eating, put the plates in the slot on the wall that seemed to whisk them away to be cleaned and went to sit in the chair that angled away from the couch. She inhaled as if she was about to speak and at that instant Jack's door opened and he came back into the room. He was wearing his blue BDU and still looking every bit the General. Whatever she had been about to say it died on a slow exhale.

"You two are going to talk," he guessed.

Daniel gave Sam a questioning look and she nodded though she looked uncertain.

Jack blew out a breath. "Okay. I'm gonna let you do that while I go back to Prometheus."

"Is something wrong?" Sam asked, quickly.

"Nope," Jack answered, casually, "Just don't want to do the talking thing. You two can hash it out."

He crossed the short distance between them and leaned over Sam. His fingers caressed her cheek her on the way to cradling her face in his palm for a moment. Their eyes met. For a moment it was just the two of them, shielded from the rest of the world.

"I'll be back," he said.

"I know," she answered.

They kissed with the barest touch of lips. For Daniel it didn't look the least strange. Somehow this was how it had always been. Sam and Jack had always said goodbye like this. It made his heart heavy with happiness to see it in reality at last.

Jack stood up, hit the communicator in his hand to signal Prometheus and vanished a second later in a bright flash of light.

Daniel shook his head ruefully. "He's one of the bravest men I've ever known and sometimes he's just such a chicken shit."

"I'm not sure it's that, Daniel," Sam said.

He gave her a shrewd, assessing look. "You're still in his chain of command; and this didn't just start last night."

"No it didn't. Did Jill tell you? He keeps insisting you knew."

"I did, but not because Jill told me. I figured it out when we were all in Minnesota."

"I thought we were pretty careful in Minnesota. I think we've been pretty careful everywhere."

"You didn't give it away with anything but how happy you've been and I guessed when Jill tried to keep your secret. She didn't let you down, Sam. She never said a word."

"Where is she, by the way?" Sam asked.

"She's asleep," Daniel paused, got a slightly misty look on his face and said, "Fatigue is the new issue she's dealing with and we were out late last night."

"Teal'c? Ishta?"

"They went out. He promised her a tour of the city. He's good with all this anyway."

"Ah," Sam nodded and studied her hands for a while. Then she said, "We should have told you, both of you. It feels like betrayal somehow."

"You've been protecting us."

"Yes."

"And yourselves."

"Yes. We've been trying to be safe."

"It was never safe, Sam. It still isn't. But we don't feel betrayed. I'd like to say that I wish you had told us so that we could have helped you, but you're doing just fine all by yourselves."

"But things are changing. The team doesn't exist anymore."

"The team will always exist, Sam, in one way or the other. What we forged isn't ever going to be broken. Certainly not by two of us finally admitting they're in love. This thing between you and Jack…. We've all felt it was inevitable. There's been sparks and resistance there from the beginning, though I didn't see it. Teal'c did. I was too distracted I guess. But the bond is there. It's different than the one you and I have. It's different than the one you have with Teal'c. But it's there – insanely complicated, seemingly impossible. But so real that we could feel it in the air at times. You're both happy, more relaxed that you've been in years. You adore him. He adores you and he's not tormented and miserable and locked up inside anymore. All of that is _good. _We're _happy_ for you."

Sam took that in for a while, staring unseeing at a spot on the mosaic floor. "You mean you don't want to yell at us about all the rules we broke? Or the monumental risks we're taking?

"Do you want me too?" A smile was pulling at the corners of Daniel's mouth again.

"Maybe you should."

"What purpose would it serve? It's not like you and Jack haven't thought all this through already. It's nothing you don't know already."

"True."

The smile broke a little. "I might yell at him though, just because."

"Don't," Sam said, and she was utterly serious.

His smile faded and he sat forward. "What?"

Sam sighed, "We're both military, Daniel. We're invested in it. This wasn't something we did lightly. The frat regs may suck but they're the law until someone changes them. The military won't care that we mean the world to each other. You throw all that in Jack's face just to bait him and he's likely to put you on your ass for real, for the first time in your very complex history."

Daniel studied her for a moment. She meant it. Daniel was younger, probably stronger but he had nothing like Jack's combat experience and never would. If he continued to bait Jack now, he was asking for trouble. He held up his hand in surrender.

"Okay."

"So we're all good with this then?"

"As good as we can be until Jack retires and we know you're both completely safe."

"That's fair."

Sam stood, moved over to him and leaned down to kiss his cheek. "I love you, Daniel."

"I love you too, Sam."

She straightened up, took a communicator out of her back pocket, keyed the code and vanished the same way Jack had moments earlier.

Daniel sat for a while, thinking and then got up and went to his room to wake up his wife.

(0)


	50. Chapter 50

This is another adventure that seems to be writing itself and I have no idea how long it will eventually be. The time frame is just before the beginning of Season 9, with Jack and Sam in an established if still clandestine relationship.

(0)

"You know," Sam said, trudging along on the narrow muddy trail, clipping his heels and avoiding the low hanging pine branches that dripped more water on them, "If you wanted to spend time alone with me all you had to do was ask."

Jack blinked in the slow endless downpour and growled, "Right, because if I wanted to set up private quality time with you _this_ is exactly what I would pick."

"I was being sarcastic," Sam answered, staring at his back and feeling as if she had been doing that for most of her adult life, "You of all people should recognize that."

"I _did_."

"Doesn't sound like it."

Sam let the rain fill in the silence for a moment. The day had gone from misty to gray almost in an instant. There had been a roll of distant thunder and then the first small patter of raindrops. They'd had just enough time to get into their rain ponchos.

Then she said, "You said you were retiring."

She winced inwardly. _God,_ she sounded like a petulant child. She might as well be stamping her feet.

Jack came to an abrupt halt, spun around and glared down at her.

"It turns out it's harder to do the second time when they pulled you out of the first one to begin with and they still want you in the program!" he snapped, "and are we really going to have this conversation _now_?"

He was angry and Sam knew it had less to do with their private issues than with the deadly disease currently ravaging the Gahattans – one of their oldest and most loyal allies.

But she was angry, too. She was _soooo_ done with all this off world nonsense and putting her private life on permanent hold.

"At least we know for sure we're alone!"

Jack stared for a moment and then reached out to put a hand firmly on the back of her neck and drag her forward. His every movement was the embodiment of power and grace, relaxed in a way that Sam knew was actually very dangerous. He lowered his head and stopped with his mouth inches from hers with the rain drenching them both. Sam looked up and saw Jack's eyes half close, making them dark and unfathomable. His jaw tightened.

Damn it. He just _would_ have to be the handsomest thing in the galaxy, wouldn't he?

"I'm just as frustrated by the delay as you are," he said.

Sam nodded, swallowed and said, "I know. But when this is over I'm taking the Area 51 job."

"I know," Jack answered. "We'll fix the plague on 311 and then we'll fix all of this. All right? I promise."

Jack leaned in closer then and kissed the raindrops clinging to her lashes. He kissed her forehead under her dripping bangs.

Then his mouth found hers and he kissed her in a way that should have set fire to the rain. It continued to fall with shocking indifference to their wild, tangled passion. It ran down the back of Jack's neck and under his collar and caressed Sam's face, tilted up to meet his.

The hot, wet, desperate kiss melted Sam and all her protests died, drowned in the rain and the honesty of his mouth on hers and his body seeking to crawl inside her through their rain gear and clothing.

When they stopped kissing, without moving so much as a centimeter apart, Sam said,

"We should find a place to set up the tent and get out of this rain."

He nuzzled his mouth against her neck and jaw, crouching slightly to reach.

"We should find a place to set up the tent and make love like rabbits," he murmured.

This time she knew he could feel her smiling when they kissed.

"Much. Better. Plan," she gasped out in between kisses.

"That's why I'm the General."

(0)

Two days earlier on P9x-311:

The situation had quickly gone from bad to worse, Daniel decided. It was just plain bad timing that he and SG8 should be on P9X-311 for the first outbreak of BKF syndrome to hit the Gahattan population in over a century. The humans were in no danger. No human had been stricken with BKF syndrome in the history of the planet. Only the nonhumans – the Gahattans – were at risk. No one was sure exactly what species had evolved into the Gahattans. But Daniel had always thought they looked vaguely catlike.

This planet had been one of the first discovered by SG1, in their first year of exploring the galaxy. The two populations lived in extreme harmony, even intermarried though no child had ever been conceived through such a union. Their combined history made reference to a distant time when they had overthrown their slave masters and forged their current alliance. It hadn't taken Daniel long to determine that the slave masters were the Goa'uld. The human population was clearly descended from Egyptian culture and the god they referenced seemed to have been Tefnut, the lion headed goddess of Lower Egypt.

Daniel and Jillian found the entire thing fascinating of course. Everyone else indulged them. P9X-311 had advanced space flight capabilities that made them a valuable ally. They also had advanced hydroponic and hydroelectric capabilities that the Powers That Be found much less valuable but had exchanged medicines and various seeds for anyway.

They had contacted the SGC when a new series of temples had been uncovered by a violent sandstorm. Jack had sent SG8 to explore it and Daniel had made an utter pest of himself until Jack sent him along too.

Now they were all stuck there until the disease was cured or at least contained.

His last report to Colonel Mallory had been full of new information and hope, however. Mallory had dragged him straight to the MALP and made him tell Jack.

"You don't think what?" Jack had asked in the same breath that Sam had said, "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"I don't think this planet is the place of origin for the Gahattan," Daniel repeated, "and Jillian agrees with me. We think they were originally colonists from another world."

Jack had paused and Daniel had suppressed a surge of irritation. He _knew_ Jack was trying to figure out how to ask him a question without appearing to know too much. Daniel had been translating 'Jack O'Neill' for years. He saved him the trouble.

"There are too many anomalies," Daniel went on hurriedly, "There is no species on this planet that seems to resemble the Gahattans. It's as if there were no gorillas or chimpanzees on Earth. There is nothing that even resembles their DNA sequencing. Also, they have an extensive knowledge of paleontology but there is nothing in the fossil record that bears the slightest resemblance to them. There's nothing in their archaeology to suggest…."

"All right," Jack interrupted, "So if they're from somewhere else how does this help us exactly?"

"It makes sense of a translation Jillian's been working on," Daniel answered. "She's been working on some of the writing on the temple we just discovered and if there _was_ another home world, they had a cure for this disease."

"What did she find in the writings?" Sam asked.

"In modern language Gahattan means 'first' but Jillian is finding evidence that at one time it meant 'cast out'. There's also the confusion about their names. Some of them translate like O'Neill – as in 'of' somewhere. Only no place with any such name exists on this planet. But these names are coming up in some of the old stories and poetry on this planet. Then there's one wall in particular that speaks of a man who falls suddenly ill. The verses describe in near perfect progression through the stages of BKF syndrome. The final verse speaks of how the woman who loved him cured him."

"What do the Gahattans say?" Jack said.

Daniel frowned and looked annoyed. He'd been hoping to avoid that question.

"They are vehemently denying it," he admitted, "You remember Mahalia? She's in charge of the Gahattan government since Senefra is now in a coma with BKF syndrome. She claims they were born here. Any attempt at a discussion is met with the same answer: _this_ is their home world."

"We don't want to cause trouble, Daniel. These folks have enough trouble at the moment."

"I know," Daniel's eyes slid sideways, taking the more submissive position. "But that doesn't mean we can't check into ourselves and try to find this possible home world. It could mean a cure."

Jack hesitated for only a moment. "You know what we need then," he said, bluntly.

"A Gate address," Daniel answered.

"Get me one of those and we'll talk," Jack said and signed off the transmission and shut down the Gate.

He turned and found Sam watching him intently.

"We have to help," she said, "Senefra, Yondati, their families, they're our _friends_, sir. Not just our allies and they're dying."

It took every ounce of self-control not to pull her into his arms and hold on tight, run comforting hands over the curves of her back and nuzzle into her hair.

"We will," he said, "If Daniel finds us a Gate address, you and I will go personally to make contact and see if we can find a cure."

There was still worry in her eyes, but a hint of hope glinted there as well.

"You'll go off world?"

He shrugged. "Like Daniel said, I'm in charge. I can do what I want."

(0)


	51. Chapter 51

In this part they get some rare uninterrupted time alone.

(0)

One day earlier:

Sam had to go looking for Jack once she had the Gate address from Daniel in her hand. She found him striding down the hall from the gym. He was wearing a loose-fitting pair of grey work out pants and a white tank top. His hair was spikey and sweat sheened his skin the way it did after making love. Before she could stop it her gaze had run like a warm caress over Jack's chest, ribs, abs, back up to his collarbone and shoulders.

When her eyes managed to find his he was looking back with a cocky self assurance that was damned sexy.

Sam was very glad that they were alone in the hall and their backs were to the security cameras.

"Whacha got?" he asked, when they were face to face.

"You?" she asked, softly.

"You betcha. Besides that?"

Sam held up a slip of paper between her first and second fingers.

"Gate address," she said.

"From Daniel?"

"Yep," she answered.

Jack took that in for a moment and then shook his head a little. "Do you think there's anything he can't do?"

"I don't know why we haven't sent him to the Middle East yet," Sam said, "The man would have it settled in a couple of hours, with a short break in the middle for lunch."

"You ready to go?"

"I had them ready a UAV first. The early MALP pictures didn't show anything but forest. I thought we'd find a settlement or signs of life so we knew what direction to go in first."

Jack regarded her for a moment.

"You could run this place you know," he said.

Sam shook her head. "Better you than me," she said.

(0)

Present:

The rain did not let up. Jack and Sam got a very brief break when it was nothing but a slight drizzle. They found a flat place on high ground just big enough for their two-man tent, crawled inside to an ear-splitting crash of thunder and then the rain came down as if it was angry. It was obvious that no matter how dire the situation was on 311, Jack and Sam weren't going anywhere for a while.

They zipped the sleeping bags together into a cozy double bag and left it open.

Sam watched Jack strip out of poncho and jacket and shirt, too mesmerized to do anything more than pull her own poncho over her head. He untied and unbuckled and unzipped and was down to his tight black briefs before he realized she hadn't moved.

Jack hesitated.

"Am I presuming too much here?" he asked, "You did say it was a good plan?"

Sam hesitated. It had been almost two weeks since they'd found a way to be together. It was a luxury to simply crawl into a tent and strip and let the rest of the world fall away.

It brought the reality of their situation into sharp relief.

"We're risking everything you know," she said.

She lowered her head for a moment and then raised it slowly to meet his eyes again. She was so turned on her entire body was throbbing. Jack wasn't even remotely hard, but that was typical of him. He never got ahead of her though he caught up quickly once he knew she was willing.

"It's worth it to me," he said, blunt and sincere, "But I'm not risking as much."

Sam frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

She watched him sit down on his heels, easing the weight on his knees. She knew the damp must be making them ache.

Jack's expression went through a rapid fire series of subtle changes that Sam knew meant he was struggling with putting his thoughts into as few words as possible and then somehow forcing them passed his vocal cords.

His willingness to talk to her, about _anything ever,_ was more precious to her than his willingness to trust her with his life.

"I'm _trying_ to get out," he said finally, "I've got a house that's paid for. I hold the title on the truck. I've got an ex-wife who sends me back every check I try to send her. I've got a bank account with ten years of military pay I haven't had time to spend. Hell, Sam, let them throw me out. It's a whole lot less paperwork for me."

Sam studied him seriously in the odd light of the tent, rainy skies filtered through camo green.

"What about your health insurance?" she asked, "You have to do something about knee surgery and soon."

Jack made a dismissive gesture with his hand, "If the price of having you in my life is a couple of crippled knees then I just don't care. But you're risking _everything: _your career, your reputation, your livelihood. What I want from you isn't something I have any right to ask you for. If it isn't worth it to you, then we'll stop. Now. I'd do anything to protect you and you know that."

Sam answered by stripping her shirt over her head and tossing it in the growing pile of discarded clothing. Her bra joined it a moment later.

She had meant it as a dare, a challenge. But the haunted relief and unbridled joy in his expression were her undoing.

Sam made a soft, choked sound that was more breath than voice. She crawled the short distance between them on her knees and flung herself into his arms.

She could take Jack's sharp tongue and every sharper wit. She could understand the way he hid behind sarcasm to guard a heart being held together with sheer will. It was the unguarded emotion that showed up in his eyes, only for her, that drove her wild. She sighed and snuggled into his body heat, soaking it in through her pores.

Jack held her for a moment and then turned her around, kissed the back of her neck and ran large, warm hands over her breasts. He caressed her for a while with no real intention of anything but caressing, touching just for the blissful purpose of touching.

Sam let him finish undressing her and then helped him back a comfortable nest of their stacked sleeping bags.

"Lie down," he said, "I don't want to do this too fast. We can't go anywhere in this rain. We don't need to worry about where we parked. No one is going to page us. The phone is not going to ring. Okay?"

She nodded and settled into the soft fabric. At the moment she couldn't think of anything hotter than to lie back and let Jack do whatever he wanted, as long as she got to do whatever she wanted too.

The tent was suddenly very hot and the deluge outside was deafening. If she'd been anywhere else, _with_ anyone else, it might have even been frightening.

Jack settled in beside her, pressing his long rangy body against her possessively. After a series of long, demanding days she was profoundly relieved to be here in this tent, finally, resting against Jack's masculine bulk.

Sam was a strong, independent, intelligent woman; and something about Jack O'Neill that turned her into a helpless puddle of femininity.

He was still wearing his briefs for some reason. Sam wondered if it was so that he would last longer by keeping her from touching him immediately (which wasn't going to work) or because he loved the feeling of rough fabric on his erection.

"What do you want?" she asked in a sultry whisper, reaching for him running her palms over his chest.

"You," he said, simply, with his breath in her ear and his hands on her body "Didn't have a plan other than that." He mouth worked its way from her ear to her jaw and down the long, elegant column of her throat. His hands were everywhere, teasing her breasts and belly and the dip of her waist, swirling around her navel before traveling to her lower pack and hauling her closer with a rough pull.

Sam whimpered and groaned and shifted up under his touch, following it as if she was attached to him with invisible strings.

"God, I want you," she said, in a low voice that came out somewhere between a growl and a purr. "I want you all the time, even when I'm _having_ you."

She reached for his cock, laid her palm over it and pressed it against him, scrunching her hand on it, and playing her thumb over the damp cotton covering the tip.

Jack's hips lifted slowly, firmly into her hand, then stilled deliberately.

"Yeah," he breathed into her neck, and moved his hips to position it better as the flexing rub got him fully hard. He got long and straight in a hurry, a shock of rigid promise under the coarse fabric. Sam shifted off her back onto her side and arched against him, trapping her hand there. She curled her fingers around him tightly, through the briefs and stroked in a rhythm she had discovered made him wild.

Jack made a low, very aroused sound, and arched a little. His breathing became short and soft, opening out into whispery gasps as his lips parted, felt as much as heard under the drum of rain on the tightly staked tent.

The light in the tent was fading. Robbed of sight all Sam's other senses sprang to life. She was achingly aware of Jack's body, of his roaming hands. Her pulse was pounding so hard it should have been audible. The sounds and the movements sent a hot jolt of lust and desire rushing into her lower body. She was hyperaware of him and of her desire for him. She was dizzy with the need to get him out of his briefs, to touch him without the barrier of clothing, to put her mouth on him.

Jack's far hand moved away from her breast and dropped over her hand. Sam stopped but didn't let go. She didn't think about it. Making love, she and Jack spoke mostly in silent touches. She knew this one meant: _Stop, enough, too much._

Her eyes traveled up to meet his in the half-light. His eyes were huge and dark and soft and when they met hers they creased a little at the corners in question.

Sam felt weak with wanting him. She ran her fingertips along the waistband of his briefs and tugged, rolled them down, pulled the elastic forward to free him. Jack kicked them the rest of the way off.

Jack," she said softly, and reached out, and laid her hand flat in the center of his chest.

Jack's heart was thundering, echoing hers. The crease around his eyes deepened, and the lines around his mouth softened as he leaned in to kiss her. His hand slid down to her hip and he urged more than pulled her towards him until his cock slid between her legs.

He rubbed in and out a little, not sheathed yet, just trapped in the moist, humid place between her thighs.

Sam's head was cradled on his muscled forearm. His hand was in the center of her back, fingers splayed to hold her close. His other hand moved to cup the side of her face. His eyes were open, watching her closely but Sam couldn't hold the eye contact.

She tried, she wanted to, desperately. But her focus blurred. Her senses were all blinded by the rigid length of him stroking her sweetest places. Her hands reached for him, grasped his arm. Her fingers clawed his chest.

She was dissolving into orgasm before Jack entered her. She tried not to cry out but the startled sound she made became a series of moans as she thrashed and pulsed against him. She came for a long time, deliciously and perfectly. The surges finally ebbed, but Jack kept stroking - gently rubbing his cock, delicately prolonging the pleasure. He moved more lightly, more slowly as she relaxed until he wasn't moving at all. He cradled her for a bit without pulling away.

Sam opened her eyes to find Jack staring at her, mesmerized by her ... _lost_ in her. It was how he made love, watching and responding to every shift in the expression on her face, the creases around her eyes and when they slid shut in ecstasy, the shape of her lips.

Jack _knew_ her in a way she had never experienced with another human, not ever before, certainly not during sex. She looked back at Jack with a sense of raw wonder and fulfillment and she smiled a slow, warm, contented smile.

"_Jack_," Sam murmured, tipping her head up.

He leaned forward to rest his forehead on hers, pressed his lips against hers. Jack pulled her tighter, wrapping arms and legs around her. Warm, male, secure; a sweet press of warmth, a slide of soft, flushed skin against skin. Jack's hand moved from her head, combing softly into her hair.

He was still hot and hard, hungry and desperately turned on. He rolled Sam's hips down flat on the sleeping bags and she willingly submitted. Her body surrendered. He kissed her shoulders and down into the hollow between her collarbones, then moved his mouth up to her throat, asking for more submission. Sam tilted her head back. Jack sucked on the softness under her jaw and felt the vibration of a low moan under his lips and tongue.

He put a hand under her lower back and urged her to roll one more time.

Sam didn't hesitate. She moved into her belly and moaned softly as Jack's body moved to cover her. His hand between her legs questioned and she opened. His chest was a broad, warm expanse against her back as he pressed forward. She pushed back, sliding down on the long, slick, hard shaft in a mindless blur of _yes oh god yes that's it._

Jack wrapped both arms around her and rested his head on her shoulder for a moment as he pushed in deep. His breath came in short, hard gasps now, hot on her skin and he began moving in rough, short thrusts. Sam surrendered to the rhythm though Jack was holding her too firmly for her to move at all. It was erotic in a whole different way – a harsh, desperate way.

She climaxed again in a nearly silent implosion, trying to curl up, locked in the curve of the body covering hers.

In the midst of her second rise into ecstasy, Jack stilled for one moment, thrust forward in two more trembling strokes. He groaned helplessly and shot hard, over and over. Sam reached back and sank her fingers into his hip. Jack was plastered against her, shuddering.

Jack collapsed onto his side, gathering her with him, still joined to her. Jack's arms wrapped around her, tightened. His mouth roved over her ear, her neck, her shoulders and hair in rough, loving kisses that he couldn't control. His hips were still rocking in tiny thrusts. Sam was still shuddering in tiny convulsions.

Finally Jack gave a low sigh, slipped free and went still. He had been holding her as if she was trying to get away but he let go now long enough to get the sleeping bag zipped around them. Sam sank back against him more firmly, put her arms over Jack's, pressed them tight, gripped his wrists so he couldn't let go.

Spooned up tight to him, Sam felt Jack going lax and boneless. She felt his breathing settle into the slow rhythm of sleep. Post climax lethargy and peace consumed her. His arms were muscled and solid around her. She was tucked under his neck and jaw. Sam pressed back, sighed and slept the way she always did with Jack – safe and not alone for the first time in her life.

(0)


	52. Chapter 52

Jack had woken up in a gray dawn, hard and ravenous for the woman sharing the sleeping bag and tent. He had often woken up in the same state in the early days of his marriage and, while Sara had been willing and eager in the evenings, she hadn't much liked waking up to sex. Over the long years between those days and now when he most often woke up alone, Jack had learned to damp down his initial morning responses.

Except that now there _was_ Sam, who woke up with him far too rarely but always in the same state, rising quickly to match his passion.

This time they had both been left breathless and laughing.

"Sam," he'd gasped, her name an exhalation of joy.

Sprawled on top of him, she'd flipped her head to clear tousled hair from her eyes and gazed at him from dancing eyes.

"Are you _always_ going to be like this off world?" she asked.

"Like _this_?" he repeated with clear inquiry.

She made a helpless gesture with her hand. "This…this…."

"Horny?" he asked.

Sam tried to glare at him and then lost it in a series of helpless giggles.

"Well, yeah," she said, "the last time we went off world was when we were on 672 to celebrate the signing of the treaty and you were so turned on we wound up outing ourselves to Daniel and Teal'c."

Jack stared at her. "There was a feast, with…with half-naked dancing and…and _oils _on 672!"

"No self-control, General?" she asked.

Jack's eyes got wider. His voice took on a slightly frantic sound. "You were dancing….half-naked and…and _oiled_!"

Sam giggled again, lowering her head to nuzzle his neck. It was so nice to just tease and flirt and share erotic memories.

"Besides, Daniel and Teal'c already knew," he said, nuzzling back.

That made her look up again. "You think so?"

"I know so," he said.

Jack took the opportunity of having her face close to his to kiss her for a long, deep moment.

They had left the camp very reluctantly, unwilling to give up their solitude. Only a problem as overwhelming as the one on 311 drove them out into the gray morning.

If the information from the UAV was correct, and they had no reason to believe it wasn't, they had another day's journey ahead of them before reaching the nearest town. The footage had shown a place reminiscent of Europe circa 1940, well behind the advancements on 311. But when Daniel had been shown the footage he had noted the remarkable similarities between the visible written text on buildings and signs to the written language of 311. It had been further confirmation that they had found the planet of origin for the Gahattan.

The forest would eventually give way to an open meadow with a river. Following the river would take them to the town. Jack's plan was to camp by the river, get a solid night's sleep, take advantage of the clean water to make themselves look civilized and then make first contact.

It would be tricky, without Daniel, but Jack thought they could do it. It wasn't his first barbecue, or Sam's.

In the meantime he had all day to walk with Sam.

Not a bad bargain.

The rain let up and the sun came out; but the day never really got warm. Sam guessed that it was early autumn, judging by the height of the sun along the horizon, the temperature and the length of the day before. They kept their olive green jackets on and each donned a ball cap. They left the woods around noon and stopped to eat before heading into the rolling field that stretched before them. Jack had ordered sandwich packs for them, so there was nothing to heat.

"You want my pound cake?" Sam asked.

"If you aren't going to eat it," Jack answered, "You want my applesauce?"

"Yes," she said, catching it out of the air when he tossed it.

They ate in silence for a little bit and then he said,

"So, Area 51, huh?"

Sam looked up sharply. "You said you knew I was going to make that decision."

"I did."

"I assume you support it?"

"Support it? Hell, I _recommended_ you for it," he looked at her seriously and then added with a lopsided grin, "and we can live in Las Vegas. Why wouldn't I want to retire to Las Vegas? Gambling, show girls, you in my bed every night…. What's not to love about that?"

She ignored the question and the stopped eating. Jack was being glib but they were each a factor in the other's life now. Sam had run the equations a few times and it didn't seem like there was a way for them to be together in any kind of permanent way.

"You recommended me for it?" She was remembering the official looking blue folder with the Air Force logo stamped on it. It had appeared on the table in her lab as if it has been beamed in by the Asgard.

"There's no one else as qualified. R & D at Groom Lake will eventually _be_ yours. This is the first step. It's perfect for you. You'll have the chance to integrate scientific research and development and gain a little more command experience."

"This position is being created for me," she said, narrowing her eyes, "Why now? Don't you trust me with SG1 anymore?"

Jack waved a dismissive hand. Sam watched him carefully. His seeming indifference wasn't fooling her one bit. He planned everything, even if he didn't let anyone know. She didn't know whether to smack him or knock him over and kiss him senseless.

"There isn't going to be an SG1 much longer," Jack admitted. "Daniel rides me every day about Atlantis. He's going to get there eventually. You know what a pain in the ass he is when he wants something. Teal'c is being more and more pulled back to the Jaffa. But no, it has nothing to do with your capabilities and everything to do with the fact that I'm a selfish bastard and I can't take having you out there. If you want to turn down the job based on that then I won't blame you. But I'm still going to DC and that's final. Hank Landry will be at the SGC in a week to start the turnover of command."

"Jack, why?" Sam scooted closer to him, until their knees were touching, "Tell me what's going on? Please?"

Jack sighed, finished what he was eating as if delaying a trip to the dentist. When he was done he packed up the trash and carefully put everything away. Sam waited. He hadn't brushed her off with a glib comment or reverted to sarcasm. His silence told her that he was going to talk – sooner or later.

Finally he sat back, drew his knees up and casually sat with his arms across them.

"I couldn't give the order," he said, softly, brown eyes staring out across the vast expanse of field and gently waving grass in front of them.

Something in Sam's stomach fluttered.

"What order?" Sam asked, just as softly.

"To fire on Osiris' Alkesh. It was the right thing to do. It was the order I should have given, from every military standpoint that I know, and I couldn't do it," Jack was talking almost to himself. Sam felt her heart stutter in sympathy with her stomach; and then it begin to beat again erratically. "Teal'c. Daniel. Bad enough. But you," he paused and turned just his head to spear her with those deep, dark eyes, "I couldn't do it because I love you. That was when I knew I couldn't that I couldn't stand having you out there anymore; and more than that, if I can't give the hard order, I have no business running the SGC."

"I was still with Pete then," Sam remembered, a little breathlessly.

"You think that mattered to me? That I would give an order that might end your life because you were engaged to some other guy?" He stopped and took a deep breath, started over, "Actually it did matter to me. It ripped my heart out. But I wanted you to be happy and you seemed happy, so I sucked it up and went on. Then you broke up with him. You know the rest."

Sam's head went into warp drive. The folder had shown up in her lab not long after the incident with the NID's theft of the Star Gate. She had read through the pages so many times they were wrinkled and dog-eared. It was frankly, a job she wanted desperately: Complete control over every piece of alien technology brought through the Gate and oversight of the development of all new space-faring technologies.

But in her enthusiasm for the new opportunity, she had missed the larger picture entirely. Jack was willing to surrender the SGC because he loved her. He was even going to grit his teeth and dive into the political infighting and budget meetings and other multiple hells of Homeworld Security if that was the price the Air Force demanded to let him go; because he loved her. He also couldn't bear the idea of handing over the decisions about her life and death to Landry; because he loved her.

She was still surprised, even now, that for all Jack's bluster with his friends and colleagues, he was always serious in his offers to listen or to work through whatever problems their relationship was facing. He always stumbled through the emotional crap but he got through it with a deep sense of commitment to their relationship that made her heart ache.

Jack was intensely affectionate with her when they were alone. Heartbreakingly affectionate. He smiled - real smiles, gentle happy smiles, with warm, soft eyes above them. He was sweet, endearing. She wanted a lifetime of it, of this, of _him._

Sam leaned over and put her head against his upper arm. When she looked up he was looking down, smiling at her in the gentle, dreamy way he often did in the late hours of the night when they should be asleep.

"I love you," she whispered.

His fingers carded her hair. His lips brushed her forehead.

"Sam." He let just enough wonder and awe touch that single syllable to make her shiver a little in response.

God _damn_, his bedroom voice was going to kill her one of these days. He reached out again, this time to touch his fingers to her face and chin, not trying to force her to face him, but tracing the lines by her mouth and eyes, running his knuckles over the skin of her cheek. He continued in that vein, stroking ever so lightly.

Sam had learned to see past the sarcasm and his preferred silences. She had gotten as good as Daniel at reading between the lines with Jack. She'd been angry with him about the delays and excuses, but now it seemed that Jack had spent a great deal of time and energy trying to make things right, to advance her career and their relationship and keep her safe.

Sam decided to punch him later, when she wasn't feeling so safe and happy….

And loved.

(0)


	53. Chapter 53

With instincts honed over a lifetime in the military Jack managed to find a high place overlooking the town. Sam had followed him the way she always had – with complete trust and without question. They had stretched out side by side in the tall grass and Sam had waited in silence while Jack surveyed the situation through their binoculars. She could have gotten out her own binoculars but she let him take in everything from his point of view and experience.

He lay for a long time with his elbows propped up and the binoculars against his eyes, deadly still, not a muscle moving. It was like he was certain they were doing surveillance on an enemy compound instead of a bustling town that was settling into evening.

But that was why she trusted him so much. She almost jumped when he finally moved, shifting over onto his side and handing her the binoculars. She took them and trained them on the town.

"See anything?" she asked.

"Nothing that concerns me," he said languidly.

Sam watched as the inhabitants went about the business of closing down for the day. There were moving vehicles that she was itching to take apart, to find out what made them go. Had these people also stumbled upon the combustion engine or was there something else at work; and if it was something else then _what_? She could see lights coming on and wondered what powered them.

With a sigh she handed the binoculars back to Jack. They weren't here to seek out new technology, as much as she earned to. They were here to find a cure for a deadly disease. She could only hope that their contact was successful and that further exploration of this planet would yield new discoveries. There was a little nagging part of her mind trying to remind her that she was sick of being off planet, away from Earth, away from _home._

The Area 51 job was exactly what she needed to satisfy both her newfound need for stability and her insatiable curiosity. They eased backwards off the grassy hill and found a flat place to set up camp. The cloud cover had finally burned off and the temperatures were falling. They ate in the tent, not wanting to risk a fire that might be seen from far away. Sam thought that a campfire would have been lovely. She could think of fewer things that were cozier than being side by side with Jack, a crackling campfire warming them and lighting the night.

Maybe she could talk him into a camping trip when this was all over. Not a hiking trip – his knees really were getting worse – but they could take his truck to any number of drive-in campgrounds scattered around Colorado.

When the temperature dipped low enough to be considered chilly, they cleaned up their meal, braved the outside long enough to wash up in the freezing river, brush their teeth and then stripped to crawl into the sleeping bag together. Sam didn't miss the way Jack tried not to wince as he pulled his knees up to get the olive green pants off. She didn't comment then but he caught her looking at him as he swallowed what looked like a handful of Tylenol.

He gave an apathetic shrug.

"I'd kill for a beer just about now," he grunted.

Sam didn't know what to say so she tried a sympathetic smile. She dug around in her pack for the first aid kit and said, "Hot or cold?"

"The beer?" he asked.

"First aid pack," she answered, shaking her head at him, "Best I can do."

"Hot," he said, "But it will only last 30 minutes so I'm not sure it's even worth it."

Sam's sympathetic smile turned sultry. Her eyes went from wide open blue sky to smoky summer sunset.

"By then I'll have you warmed up all over," she said.

A flush rose over Jack's bare chest and spread into his neck and face. He swallowed as if his throat had gone dry.

They stripped to underwear and crawled in to the bag. Sam brought the hot pack with her, activated it and slipped it between his knees as they wiggled into each other's arms and adjusted the bag to cover them both.

"Better?" she asked.

He grunted in response, noncommittal, but pulled her leg over his and snuggled close for warmth. She tucked in tight against him, wrapped in his arms. She put one arm around his ribs and rested that hand on his shoulder blade. Her other arm was trapped between them, as always. That hand was within reaching distance of his genitals but she resisted for the time being. Jack was clearly in extreme discomfort from the walk and the damp and cold.

She sighed a little and felt her minty toothpaste-fresh breath reflected back off his skin. She inhaled the sharp, salty, earthy Jack-scent that was both familiar and beloved.

"Do you really need surgery for your knees?" she asked.

"Already had four," he said, "the next one is going to have to replacement surgery and has to be done one at a time. Going to be a bitch. Desk job is all I'll be good for, for months."

Sam frowned in the gathering dark. "You aren't that old," she said, "I know you broke your leg when your chute didn't open, but what did you manage to do to your knees? They've been like this as long as I've known you, so it hasn't been all the hiking off world."

She had been too busy to asking the questions with her brain going off on its own tangents seeking to answers to notice at first the way he tensed up and seemed to stop breathing.

_Oh, god, _she thought, then, _Shit. Way to bring up bad memories, Carter. Great job…._

"You don't have to tell me," she said softly, moving her hand from his shoulders to his chest, trying to get him to start breathing again.

His heartbeat felt dull and heavy.

"Yeah, I think I do," he answered.

"No you don't…"

Jack cut off her protest by placing his finger over his lips.

"I think I need to," he said, almost to himself, "I don't want you to know. I hate for you to have to share these memories. But I never told Sara either and now I think that was a mistake. These are the things that people _should_ know about each other. It's just hard and I'm not sure why trusting someone with the darkest shit from your past is harder than trusting them with your life."

Sam considered what he had just said carefully. She had been wondering for months how Sara could have walked away from a man like Jack – a man willing to compromise, to endure the emotional conversations, to drag himself out of his 'maleness' and attempt to see things from her sometimes-very-female-point of view.

Sam realized with an impact that made her lose her breath for a moment that she wasn't dealing with Sara's Jack. This was _her_ Jack. _This_ was the man Jack was trying to be – for her and her alone.

"You're worried I'll see you differently," she said.

She felt him nod, felt the press of his lips against her hair in a grateful kiss.

"I won't," she said, fiercely, trying to get even closer to him, "I understand what you're doing."

He tipped her chin up. If it had been light enough they would have been staring into each other's eyes.

"Some of this is classified. You understand?" he said.

Sam nodded. "I've always known you had to do some things that crossed a line," she said.

"Some of it I did because my orders were to succeed by any means. The Black Ops stuff. It was what I signed up for, when they recruited me," Jack's voice was soft in the dark. He took a deep breath and after a long pause he said, "You remember the Iran-Contra mess?"

"Yes," she said.

"In 1987 my unit got caught up in a similar mess. We were covert in Iraq, supposedly to take out a power plant, but it felt wrong to me from the beginning. We were supposed to meet up with the Kurds for three weeks of covert support and training. We were given sealed backpacks and told not to look in them for any reason until we were on the ground. We made the jump as planned. But we got ambushed by Fedayeen almost before we got our chutes stowed. It took me about two seconds to figure it out. The op had gone down exactly the way it was planned to: as delivery of contraband, with someone in my unit – or maybe all of us - as the mule. Our government had been selling arms to Iran to finance rebels in Nicaragua; who knew what they were financing by selling arms to Iraq.

"We came under tracer fire. The whole thing stank like a setup. Maybe my whole unit was supposed to go down, or maybe we were only supposed to take enough fire to make us abandon the backpacks and whatever was in them and run for cover, or maybe we weren't supposed to be targeted at all - maybe the tracers were meant to spook us, not hit us. Maybe it was an accident that some inept fucker nailed me with a tracer anyway. I woke up in a cell, alone, bare assed, learned much later that everyone else had gotten out on a chopper."

Sam inhaled sharply. "They left you behind."

Jack swallowed again. _Cromwell_ and a dozen filthy words went through his head.

"Yes," he said, "They thought I was dead, "he stopped again and fought down the old anger. He'd been down but not confirmed dead and the chopper had flown away anyway. God damn, Crowmwell…. "and as far as the government was concerned I didn't exist anymore. No one was coming for me. No one was negotiating for my release. We'd been in country on a covert mission that was being disavowed from the beginning."

Sam tried not to shiver.

"Then I found out there were other Americans in the prison. So that was my only chance. They'd find me if they came in and tried to extract the other guys; or the other guys would tell them I was there if they got out due to negotiations."

"How long?" Sam asked, really certain she didn't want to know.

"Three months," Jack answered, "It got worse towards the end. I don't even know what they wanted from me at that point. I didn't know what we'd brought in and all my intel was out of date at that point. Right before we got rescued there was a breakout."

"You could have gotten away," she guessed. "Why didn't you?"

Jack was silent for a while.

"Someone had to act as a distraction," he said, lightly. She felt him shrug, "I figured I could take it better than some of the others. Some of them were ready to break. There were two officers with more intel than me. They were almost over the edge. We had to get them out. It was common sense, military protocol, not heroism."

"If you say so," Sam said in a voice that said she didn't believe a word of it. It was another example of Jack being Jack – unselfish and arrogant and courageous and stubborn.

"Those of us that didn't make it out suffered the consequences though," he said, softly, "Torture, starvation, dehydration, broken bones, electroshock, near drowning. Some of the guys were raped. It was a last ditch effort to break the ones that hadn't broken. I figured they'd get around to me eventually and then we'd all be killed when it was over. Daniel could probably explain it from an anthropological position – the escalation of aggression and pain but to me it all comes down to humanity's ability to be inhumane. Right after the breakout was when they shattered both my kneecaps…. the first time. Most of my injuries healed over time, but the knees…they just seem to be a permanent reminder; and I still don't even know what we dropped into Iran or what the whole thing was even about. Iran-Contra got outed but nothing that happened with Iraq ever did."

Silence descended for a moment and then Jack said, "Do you still…." And then he stopped, swallowed hard and his arms around her tightened.

"Love you?" Sam asked, lightly, "Think you're the most incredible man that's ever lived? Think you're so handsome you should be in Hollywood?"

"Did you ever think that?"

"Every moment since the first time I saw you," Sam said. "You just so _damned_ amazing and I know you don't see that. So you'll just have to take my word for it."

Jack kissed her in the dark for a little while.

"I still can't help thinking…some of the things I've done, that have been done _to_ me…. You shouldn't have to be near any of that," he said.

"You're trying to protect me from _you_," Sam said.

"Yep," Jack admitted.

"Fuck you, Jack," Sam said, with military bluntness, "Cut the patronizing protective crap and treat me like the officer I am. Stop deciding for me what I can take and what I can't. I love you and I melt into a puddle at the sight of you. You're so amazing you bend the space around you and I'm going to keep telling you that until you believe me."

"I do believe you!" he protested.

"No you don't, but it's okay. You will eventually." Sam paused, nudged his face with hers and smiled, "I don't believe half the things you say about me either. Doesn't mean I don't want you to keep saying them."

Jack laughed and she smiled a bit wider because she'd been trying to make him laugh.

"Do you feel better?" she asked.

"Yeah," he sounded a little mystified, "I always thought I'd tell you all that and it would fuck everything up for a while."

"I love you, Jack," Sam said, "Nothing is ever going to change that."

Jack leaned against her, almost seemed to sag. The hot pack between his knees was cooling off and he reached down long enough to toss it out of the sleeping bag.

But Sam had been right. She already had him warmed up all over. He relaxed and sighed a little as she began running her hands over him in a very insistent way.

Jack had only really fallen in love three times in his life – first with Sara and then with Charlie.

Now with Sam; and he vowed with everything in his being that this time, he was _not_ going to screw it up.

(0)


	54. Chapter 54

_He really is amazing_, Sam thought as she watched Jack in a crouch that had to be killing his knees, surrounded by children, smiling and offering them pieces of Hershey Bar.

It was just luck that the first inhabitants of this planet that Sam and Jack had stumbled across was a group of children and their young teacher, out on a field trip to the river to watch the annual run of salmon-like fish trying to swim upstream.

It had taken him about five minutes to convince them that he and Sam weren't a threat. Their teacher had gone from alarmed to intrigued in half that time. Sam could see that she found Jack just as compelling as Sam did herself. The fact that Jack must seem very exotic didn't help.

The children clustered around Jack like a litter of kittens, multicolored hair and various skin tones adding to the image – curious and eager and babbling questions with mouths full of candy.

It was hard to believe that only moments before they had frozen in startled fear at the sight of Jack and Sam and then scrambled up the nearest tree until their teacher had told them to come down.

Daniel had been the one to first point out the similarities between the Gahattans and felines. Their eyes were almond-shaped and ran the spectrum between blue and green to deep gold. Their hair tended to be patterned – in tabby stripes or patches of black, white and gold - and more closely resembled fur than hair. It lay close to their skin, running back over their pointed ears and down their necks and backs. It would raise up if they were alarmed or angered.

They had a greeting that also seemed feline in nature. They extended their hands palms down, opened their fingers in a wide flex and then curled them up again. It was Daniel again who had pointed out how much this was like a cat opening and retracting its claws. At some time in their evolution they may have even still had such claws, or so Daniel thought, and the gesture was a holdover that meant _I'm unarmed_ or something like that.

Whatever it meant, Jack had remembered it and immediately offered the gesture to the school group. Sam had imitated him and it had stopped the initial panic.

Now it seemed Jack was their new best friend forever. He was patiently breaking up candy while the children repeated the words _Jack_ and _chocolate_ and laughed happily. Their teacher had given the name Sassaressa. Jack had tried it without success and finally asked if he could call her Sassy. The smile, the Midwestern charm, the exotic appeal of simply being a human male….. Sassy would have let him call her anything he wanted, Sam guessed. Sassy's smile was blazing when she happily said yes.

_Worship him from afar,_ Sam advised her in the privacy of her own thoughts, _he's mine._

"You're going to ruin their teeth," Sam told Jack but her tone was light.

"Come on, Carter," Jack said, "You've been overseas. Isn't this what GIs do?"

"When did we join the Army and become general infantry?" Sam asked, still grinning at him a little.

"When we joined the Star Gate Program," Jack said, handing a piece of chocolate to a little girl with a calico head of long silky fur. "When was the last time _you_ were in a cockpit?"

Sam made a wry face and said, "Point taken."

"Star Gate?" Sassy asked, tilting her ginger striped head. Sam didn't have any trouble picturing her pricking up her ears if such a thing had been physically possible for the Gahattans.

Jack gestured vaguely in the direction from which they had come. "Big stone circle with a giant mushroom in front of it? In the woods on the other side of the meadow?"

Sassy frowned. "You mean the Lockport," she said, "No one goes there. It has not been used in hundreds of years. It goes to the place of Exile. Its use was outlawed generations ago."

Sam and Jack exchanged a long loquacious gaze. _That_ tiny bit of information certainly spoke volumes.

One of the children – a little girl – had skipped off and returned with a fistful of wildflowers. She offered them to Sam.

"For you," she said, with a perky smile.

Sam hesitated and then took them and gave them a cautious sniff. She'd been on enough planets where very pretty flowers smelled like something that had died several days previously. These had a smell like pumpkin pie spice.

"They're lovely," Sam said, awkwardly, "Umm, thank you."

Jack had risen to his feet with a smooth grace that belied how much pain he was in but it didn't surprise Sam. He would never show even the remotest weakness in front of a potential foe. He gave her a bemused look and she realized how uncomfortable she was with the local munchkins.

She'd never been good with children, never been drawn to them – a part of her whole 'not-really-a-girlie-girl' personality. Jack was as natural with them as a fish in water. Unbidden, Sam thought about Charlie and wondered if Jack would ever talk to her about him. As far as Sam knew, Jack didn't talk about anyone he had ever lost. When it came to Charlie, Jack seemed to have buried him and left him in peace and then gone off and given up hope of ever having peace again.

Sassy drew their attention again. "You traveled from the place of Exile?"

"Not exactly," Jack said, "The Gate actually goes to a whole lot of places, to other Gates on other planets. We came to you from our planet. But we know where your place of Exile is. We've been there."

Sassy's eyes grew round and then suspicious. "You were allowed to leave?"

"We went there of our own free will, and yes, then we left," Jack said, which wasn't entirely true since he and Sam had never actually been to 311.

"Why would you go there?" Sassy asked, with another tilt of her head. She sounded genuinely perplexed.

"We're explorers," Sam explained, "Travelers."

"Peaceful travelers," Jack interjected, channeling his inner 'Daniel'.

Sam shot him another sardonic look and shook her head at him a little, but indulgently, not annoyed. Jack gave her back his very best snow-white innocent look.

She went on, "We travel just to see what is out there. We found the planet you call the place of Exile and from there we found you. There is a race of beings there that must be your kin…."

"No!" Sassy's response was violent. The fur on her head and neck stood up in a line and she took a step back.

Sam opened her mouth and took a breath and stopped when Jack's hand curled around her arm in warning. He'd 'gotten' it a second before her. This was something cultural, something forbidden. They didn't need Daniel to tell them that. They _might_ need Daniel to explain exactly what it was and form some way around it without causing an interplanetary incident.

But they couldn't have Daniel at the moment so they were going to have to figure this out for themselves.

"Sassy," Jack said, cautiously, "Is there someone in charge of your town? A mayor, or council or headman of some kind that we can talk to?"

Sassy narrowed her brown-gold eyes and then took a deep breath. Her fur settled into normal and she ran a hand over it to smooth it down further.

"I will take you to Abriennanan. She is our Senior."

She motioned for the children and they fell into a neat line behind her.

Jack and Sam took up a position directly behind them and followed them into the town.

(0)


	55. Chapter 55

Jack found Sam bent over the engine of one of the motorized vehicles, talking excitedly with a group of male natives about its function. The afternoon sun was hitting the highlights of her hair. Her eyes were wide and shining.

She had a body honed in the military and a face that started bar fights. She loved the outdoors, could bench press sixty percent of her own body weight, restored old motorcycles. He'd recently discovered that she had a weakness for romance novels (having found the box stuffed under the bed while trying to find out where his missing boot had landed the night before.) Her heroes were Lyudmila Pavlichenko and Adelbert Waldron. She had the same deep-seated need to be down in the thick of things, to have his _hands_ on things, that he did. There was some need in both of them to seek action and adventure, something that neither of them had gotten in even the top of the line jets.

Jack hadn't just fallen in love with Sam. He'd been having a clandestine and torrid affair with her in his head for almost a decade. He'd been crazy about her before they'd even met. He just hadn't known she existed in anything but his heartbroken imagination.

He'd spent his boyhood thinking that all he wanted to do was fly.

Now all he wanted was _her._

He moved up beside her, shouldering aside some other guy who was leaning much too close, in his opinion, and leaning on the fender and against her. Her hands were grimy. There was a streak of grease on her forehead, above her eyebrow, where she had brushed back her hair with her wrist.

"Find out how it works?" he asked.

"It's kind of amazing really. The whole thing works on ammonia. We have prototype engines that use this kind of technology but nothing nearly as advanced. This could be a major breakthrough…," she broke off abruptly and then said, "and it's not really important right now, is it?"

"Hey, I asked!" Jack protested.

"But people are dying on 311," Sam said,"and that has to come before negotiating for technology. Did you get any further with Abriennanan and the Elders?"

"Nope," Jack said, his light tone doing little to hide his annoyance.

He had just come from his third attempt to convince the locals that the folks living on 311 were related to them. Abriennanan was indeed a 'senior'. Her fur had always been silver striped but it was now salted liberally with gray. She was rather plump, almost matronly and Jack sensed she could be reasonable and even charming most of the time; at least when odd looking strangers weren't trying to get information out of her about what was clearly a cultural were unable – or unwilling – to accept that anyone who went through the Lockport to the place of Exile could live, much less go on to be the ancestors of a thriving population.

He couldn't even get them to acknowledge that a disease like the one on 311 had ever existed here, on the world they called Eeokkia; and even if the people on this other world were dying and looked like them, it had nothing to actually _do_ with them.

"They're kicking us up the ladder. We're being taken to another city-state where there are more people we're supposed to talk to."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" Sam protested. Her thoughts went to her friends suffering and dying on 311.

"Yeah," Jack straightened and patted the vehicle fender, "It's a long drive apparently and these things don't have lights."

Sam looked startled for a moment, as if she had been so intent on crawling around the engine that she hadn't noticed something so basic.

"You could fix that for them," Jack pointed out, affectionately.

"Below my pay scale," she answered.

"Not a big enough problem for you?"

Sam grinned at him a little – the kind of smile that made the sun rise in his chest and made him feel warm all over.

"Let's see if they'll trade it for the cure," Same replied.

"Good point," he said.

"Should we find a place to set up the tent for the night then?" she asked.

"No," Jack said, "according to the Elders, we're being put in a 'mouse hole' for the night."

"A what?"

Jack shrugged, "No idea. It's apparently some kind of guest accommodations. Get your gear and say goodbye to your new friends." He tilted his head and indicated the approach of Sassy. "She's been assigned as our guide. I guess she's coming to take us to this 'mouse hole.''

Sam studied him for a moment, wondering if the word mouse hole had him picturing some kind of prison situation again. If it was, they would have a fight on their hands getting him there. Her, too, for that matter.

She gathered her gear and stood up to find him staring at her.

"What?" she asked. The look was measuring and intense, from hooded brown eyes.

"You feel all right?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "Yeah," she answered, wondering who was asking – Jack or her CO. Hedging her bets that it was a little of both, she admitted, "I'm kind of tire, achy, probably from the walk and the damp."

Jack grunted and pushed back his doubts. She was pale, even for her. But he had seen her walk farther in worse conditions.

Still, none of them were as young as they had been when all this started. Nearly a decade off world had taken its toll on all of them. Well, except Teal'c.

If he suggested to Sam that she might be feeling her age she'd shoot him with his own sidearm. He'd keep an eye on her and make sure she rested tonight and on the trip to the city the following day.

Sassy reached them and asked if they were ready. At their affirmative answer, she turned to take them to their 'mouse hole.'

(0)

Sam sank down into the tub of hot water and sighed deeply. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back and wondered when the last time she'd indulged in a long, hot soak had been.

"Feel good?" Jack was standing at a wall mirror trying to deal with two days growth of beard, armed with only a disposable razor and wearing nothing but his underwear.

A 'mouse hole' had turned out to be a small cabin, intended for overnight travelers, always free. It had a series of mats on the floor, hot and cold running water, a tub, what amounted to a toilet, a wood burning heater and was basically snug and warm and dry.

"It feels wonderful," she said, sounding content and happy.

"You should have brought one of your paperback romances," he teased, "I could find you some candles, maybe a bottle of wine…"

Sam kicked her foot out of the tub just enough to splash him with water.

"I'm never going to live that down am I?" she asked.

"It's not what I expected to find under your bed," he said.

"What _did_ you expect? A boxful of porn? Why do you think I've never dared look under _your_ bed?"

"That's not where it is," Jack said, looking at her reflection in the mirror and lifting his eyebrows in a mischievous look. Then he shrugged and answered her question, "I don't know. A boxful of Scientific American? Technical manual?"

"You're the one who told me to get a life," she pointed out.

"I suggested knitting," Jack said.

"Boring," Sam answered. Then after a pause she said, "Of course sometimes so are the romances."

Jack grunted and tipped his head back to work on the fur growing on his neck.

"You know what drives me nuts about them sometimes?" Sam asked. "Miscommunication as a plot device. Half the time if they'd just be honest with each other and explain what they heard or what they think, the whole book could be wrapped up in about fifteen pages; and the guys are never like any real guys that I know. They're more like what women want men to be like." Sam hesitated and thought to herself, _then it just gets silly because one of them always walks away for the good of the other and that's what I did to you and reading those stupid novels is one of the great big reasons I broke up with Pete…._

"So why do you read them?" he asked.

Sam's nose wrinkled up in a grin. "The sex is hot," she said.

Jack paused and then turned to give her a long sweeping look. At the moment she looked like a direct feed from one of his most private fantasies.

"So you don't need them anymore?" he asked.

Her eyes were shining like a summer sky. "Nope," she said, "though the candles and wine might still be nice."

"When we get back," he said, "I swear. We'll do something seriously romantic. Okay?"

Sam looked at him and wondered if he knew how romantic it was just to be with him.

Probably not.

"Dinner on the rooftop observatory?" She suggested, "We could watch the Leonids."

Jack's heart contracted – gorgeous, brilliant, a crack shot, a motorcycle freak _and_ she loved astronomy.

He was a lucky man; a very lucky man.

"Sounds perfect," he managed to say, "What kind of wine do you want?"

Sam slid a little bit down in the water and sighed again, closing her eyes.

"Make it a six pack of Coors," she said, sounding dozy.

Jack froze, swallowed hard and fought the urge to haul her out of the tub and make love to her in the pile of mats on the floor with wild abandon.

Yep, he was one lucky son of a bitch.

(0)


	56. Chapter 56

The vehicle they were riding in was a lot like the interior of a shuttle. The driver sat alone in a cone shaped forward compartment. The passengers sat on benches that ran lengthwise along the sides, forming an aisle between them. Everyone entered the vehicle from a door on the back, which caused Jack's Black Ops sensibilities to tingle. He didn't like anything with only one exit. There were windows that could be broken he noted and that made him relax a little.

Sam perched on the edge of one of the benches and pestered Sassy with questions about the operation of the vehicle. Jack stretched out on his back on the other bench and pretended to sleep. In reality he was taking in every word Sassy said in case one of them had to drive this thing in an emergency. He thought Sassy was probably fooled by his feigned posture and closed eyes. Sam was on to him by now.

He listened to the information being passed to them by Sassy and listened even more carefully to Sam as she asked her questions. She had been 'off' all morning – cranky, distant and more quiet than he was used to. He understood that everyone had moods but Sam was usually the image of military efficiency while on a mission; and he knew her well enough to know that she wasn't taking advantage of their new relationship to be less than professional.

Something was wrong. He just didn't know what.

His suspicions were confirmed when she abandoned talking to Sassy as soon as she was clear about how the vehicle operated. She came across the back of the vehicle to his bench and he sat up immediately – as attuned to her as the ocean was to the moon.

"What's up?" he asked.

Sam collapsed on the bench, lay down on her side and put her head on his leg.

"I've got a headache," she said.

"Too much information?" he asked.

"No, I've had it since I woke up," she said. There was a furrow between her brows and she was unusually pale again, "and I'm so tired."

"Did you take something?"

"Tylenol, before we left. I don't think it's working," her voice was getting muzzy.

Jack rubbed the back of her neck.

"Get some sleep if you can. It's not like we're getting anywhere fast here."

It was true. The Eeokkians had yet to invent a gear that produced any speed…. Or independent suspension….. or springs for the seats….

But somehow Sam's breathing had evened out into the rhythm of sleep before the vehicle managed to hit the next pothole in the dirt road. Jack continued to massage the tension in her neck for a little bit. Then he put his head back against the uncomfortable upholstery and closed his eyes.

He must have slept, at least a little because the next thing he knew Sam was tossing, groaning a little and even through the utilitarian heavy fabric of his BDU pants he could feel that she was burning up.

He came fully awake with a jolt, reached for her forehead to confirm that she had a fever – and crap did she have a fever. When he drew his hand back a few strands of her silky hair stuck to his fingers and came with it.

Jack knew a moment of simple blind panic. His body turned to water and then started to shake. He was frozen in utter terror just before his entire body erupted into fight mode.

But there was no enemy he could fight to protect her this time. A headache and a fever could be nothing more than a bout of the flu. Coupled exhaustion and hair loss there was only one thing it could be – BKF syndrome, which had never in its history struck a human. Allowed to run its course, the disease would progress to a short coma, organ failure and death.

Sam hadn't been to P9X-311 in years. She hadn't been near anyone who had contracted the disease in years. Nothing from 311 had been sent through the Gate.

It could only mean that the disease existed on Eeokkia, or had at one time, and there was a mutated version that affected humans; which in turn meant that the Eeokkians were lying to him and Sam was grave danger.

"Sassy," he said, in a tone that he'd been told could sound really scary at times and he wanted this to be one of those times, "Stop the vehicle. Now."

She didn't pull over or signal or anything else. She simply braked and stopped.

Jack slid off the bench and grabbed his pack, putting his hand unerringly on the First Aid kit and digging out the packet of Tylenol.

"You know that disease we told you about on the other planet?" he went on, almost conversationally.

"Yes," she said, in a very small voice.

"Well, Sam's got it," Jack had a little bit of a growl in his voice now, "and she hasn't been anywhere near that planet. You think you can explain that?"

Sassy had turned around slowly in her seat. She watched Jack lift Sam's head and gently coax her to take the pills with a swallow of water from one of their canteens. Then he let her settled back down on the bench. Jack sat down his back to the bench and his knees drawn up.

The way he looked at her should have turned the air between them to ice.

Sassy had to swallow a few times against the dry ache in her throat.

"I don't know anything about the other planet, or the disease there. But what you described sounds like a sickness that we sometimes get as children. There is a medicine and then we receive a vaccination every year until we turn ten."

Jack was immediately torn between relief at the words 'medicine' and 'vaccination' and a strong need to throttle the entire population of Eeokkia. There was a little voice that whispered to him urgently that a vaccination that worked on the natives might not necessarily work on humans. Jack told that voice to shut the hell up.

"Are there doctors in the city? Medics? A hospital?"

"Yes," Sassy nodded. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"You're going to take us there and then you're going to take me to someone who can explain all this. Do you understand?"

Sassy nodded again, turned swiftly back in her seat and the vehicle lurched forward again.

Jack turned and resisted the urged to stroke Sam's head. He couldn't bear the idea that more of her hair would come away in his hand. Instead he got up and unrolled her sleeping bag to throw over her like a blanket. She was eggshell pale with bright pink spots high on her cheeks.

"Jack," she murmured.

"It's okay," he whispered back.

"We both know it isn't," she answered. Her eyes were still closed and her brow was still furrowed.

"It will be," he promised and this time his tone said not to argue with him.

She was quiet for a moment, breathing in hard, shallow breaths.

"You scared Sassy," she said finally in a voice that was barely audible.

Jack grunted and didn't answer and tucked the blanket around her more tightly. He suspected that before this was over he was going to scare a lot of people.


	57. Chapter 57

Heat. Burning. Every part of her body was on fire, scorched with fever and shivering with cold. Every breath of air that touched Sam's body was like ice across her tortured skin. It was like she was being eaten up from the inside out.

She was under a heavy pile of blankets and now she nestled down in the bed, even though it hurt to move, curled up in a tight ball on her side. She remembered falling asleep with Jack's arms around her and his warmth against her back, sheltering her from the cold. It had been easy to fall asleep that way, with his body close and his voice closer, tickling in her ear, ordering her to rest. She remembered him kissing the back of her neck and how cool his breath had felt against her fevered skin. He had lingered long and slow over all the parts of her that his lips could reach, all the parts of her he had already marked and claim as his.

She had reached a plateau of exhaustion earlier in the day, stopped tossing and turning. Maybe the medicine they had given her had finally taken some kind of effect. Maybe her body was shutting down. She wasn't sure.

There were voices in the room, talking but she couldn't make out what they were saying. Her ears were ringing with dizziness.

But one voice was Jack and she closed her eyes tighter and clung to that presence.

(0)

Jack was sitting in a chair to keep from pacing. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped loosely in front of him, mostly to keep from strangling any one of the three people in the room with him.

_It's not their fault_, he told himself firmly. _They didn't do this._

"The laws are from those who came to us in times long past."

The words were being spoken by an aging female Eeokkian. She had slanted gold eyes and cream colored hair liberally streaked with grey. She reminded Jack strongly of an old, wise Asian grandmother. She was half Jack's size and twice Jack's age and was still an indomitable spirit, strong in her passions about 'the old ways' and suspicious of the outsiders.

Her name was Caranastra and she was Sassy's grandmother.

Sassy was the second person in the room. She had taken Jack and Sam to what she called 'the place of wellness', waited long enough for Sam to receive initial treatment and then disappeared. When she returned she had her grandmother with her. Jack was surprised, since he had expected to be talking to another Council of Elders or mayor or president or whatever passed for the local voodoo priest for answers. He had not expected to be confronted by this diminutive elder with the dubious credentials of being Sassy's grandmother.

The third person in the room was Sam's doctor. Aanandini was tall, slender, had electric blue eyes and silver white hair. She had a feisty no-nonsense air that reminded Jack, comfortingly, of Fraiser. She was not above admitting that she was baffled by Sam not immediately responding to the treatment that was routinely used on her Eeokkian patients.

But at least Jack sensed a commitment in Aanandini to finding out _why_ Sam wasn't responding. He'd seen the same look in Daniel's eyes when confronted with a new language; and in Sam's eyes when confronted with new technology. Hopefully Aanandini had the same dogged determination that his science hounds had.

The flaw in his plan to goad and torment and plead and bully Aanandini and the entire rest of the staff of this 'place of wellness' into finding a cure was that the Eeokkians had never developed the medicine in the first place.

"So," Jack said to Caranastra, "Those who came to you in the past gave you the cure for this disease and then just left?"

"Yes," she answered stubbornly. "They gave us our transports and our medicines and what technology we possess and then they gave us the Prohibitions."

"The ones that make it impossible for you to do any kind of research or make any kind of advancements in your culture at all?" Jack was trying very hard to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

"Yes," she answered. "It is forbidden."

"Did these people have glowing yellow eyes and talk in really deep voices by any chance?" Jack asked, suspiciously.

The three Eeokkians exchanged puzzled looks.

"There isn't anything like that in the history," Sassy said, "But they gave us a name for what they were called."

"Goa'uld? Claiming to be your gods?"

All three heads shook in unison, adamantly negative. "They never said anything about gods. They called themselves Furlings," Caranastra informed him.

For the first time, Jack was stunned to speechlessness. Furlings….. _Furlings…_ A dozen thoughts flew through his head at once and ended with _Crap, Daniel will be all over this place…_

A soft moan, deep and full of need interrupted Jack's thoughts.

"_Jack_," Sam's voice and the word was a plea.

He was on his feet and next to the bed on his aching knees before the Eeokkians knew he had moved.

He took both of her hands between his and pressed them together.

"What?"

_Christ,_ she was burning; the heat coming from her body was unbearable. Her skin was pale and dry. She didn't open her eyes but shifted across the bed trying to get closer to him.

"It makes sense," she said; then she had to stop and swallow. Her voice sounded packed with cotton.

Jack got up, reluctantly, and came back with water and more Tylenol. He made her drink first, as much as she could stand and then take the pills.

"What does?" he asked as he helped her settle back onto the pillows. There was multiple strands of short, pale hair on the sheets and stuck to the shoulder of his t-shirt where her head had rested.

"What makes sense?" he asked and heard the jagged, frightened edges in his own voice, the ones he was trying to repress.

"Furlings… They…. Were trying to protect them from the Goa'uld."

Jack had to drag everything he knew about the Goa'uld and the Furlings up out of the deep recesses of his mind. He had shoved everything else but Sam and the immediate problem out of the way.

"By creating a stagnant society?" Jack sounded dubious, even though he didn't want to argue with her.

"Yes," Sam paused and then swallowed and opened her eyes.

The look in her eyes was more than misery, more than pleading for release. It was also pleading for understanding so that she didn't have to keep talking. They held the look for long enough that Jack caught up with her finally.

Sick and fevered she was still twice as cognizant and brilliant as anyone else Jack knew, connecting a puzzle when she didn't even have all the pieces.

"No technology to attract the attention of the Goa'uld, no attempts to get out into space, no EMF leaking from the atmosphere to announce the presence of intelligence on this little rock in the galaxy," Jack said.

Sam's eyes closed on a relieved sigh. "Yes."

All right. She had a point. They knew nothing about the Eeokkians and less about the Furlings. Daniel just didn't have enough to work with in the tiny fragment of information they had managed to salvage. But it was entirely possible that creating stagnant societies was one of the ways the Furlings had protected them from Goa'uld invasion.

Which still didn't explain the Gahattans and how the two cultures became separated; or why they refused to acknowledge each other's existence.

"Jack," Sam said again.

"What?"

"We need Daniel."

Jack shook his head, adamantly. "No. No, Sam. We'll figure this out."

Sam sighed and some of the tension ran out of her body. She really didn't want Daniel here either, not even with a vaccine, especially not when it didn't seem to be working for her.

Jack leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"Get some rest."

It took her less than several heartbeats to fall back to sleep.

Jack stood up, once again hiding the fact that movement was becoming harder and harder for him. He turned to Caranastra.

"You and I need to talk," he said.

(0)


	58. Chapter 58

Jack's frustration level had him thinking about blocks of C4 and all the good and persuasive things he could do with them. In his head he could hear Daniel's warning voice: _No, Jack. Explosions. Bad._

To a certain extent Jack agreed with that. He had certainly seen enough villages pointlessly burned to the ground, too much aimless gunfire in the dark, too many knives held to innocent throats.

But he had nightmares about every member of his team – Teal'c tortured and revived over and over after being captured by an angry system Lord; Daniel losing everything he had regained over the last eight years and turning back into the unanchored and lonely man he had been. For Sam it had always been a vision of her getting blown to hell because she touched the wrong crystal or pulled the wrong wire.

Sam wasn't supposed to be dying in a stagnant civilization of a disease that had never touched a human before.

And, along those lines, why wasn't he lying in the bed next to her just as sick?

Why Sam dying and he, Jack, was up walking around and ready to storm the beach and take prisoners?

He kept those and all his thoughts out of his expression as he took Caranastra and Sassy outside. He moved with the casual authority of command, certain they would follow in his wake without ever having sworn an oath to do so. But every step was a step further away from Sam and it sliced his soul into very small pieces.

Jack knew all sorts of interrogation methods, and he knew he wasn't above using any of them to get what he wanted now. But sometimes, privacy and fresh air and openness to new information were all it took to get someone talking.

He stopped by a tall tree in a sheltered garden that must be for the enjoyment of recovering patients. He turned and focused his attention on Sassy.

"I asked you to take me to someone who could explain all this," he reminded her, "and you brought me your grandmother. So _not _what I meant, but I assume you have a reason?"

Sassy returned his stare steadily though she still looked a bit unnerved by him.

"Grandmother was part of the Conclave," she said, quickly, before she could reconsider speaking and as if that would explain everything.

"Congratulations," Jack said, "and that means exactly what?"

Sassy blinked at him in astonishment.

"You don't have a Conclave on your world?" she asked.

"Oh probably lots of them. One great big one I can think of off the top of my head but I don't think they do the same thing that your Conclave does. So how can your grandmother help me?"

Caranastra stepped forward and got between them. The narrow eyed look on her face implied that she was going to scratch Jack's eyes out.

"Do not speak as if I am not here. I am old, not dead," she snapped.

Jack reined in his temper, reminding himself once again that it wasn't these people's fault.

Caranastra turned her own temper on her granddaughter.

"You brought me here to tell this man our most sacred histories?" she demanded, clearly outraged.

"Grandmother," Sassy said, quietly, "His mate is dying. She –_they_ – do not deserve to die for our past. If there is something in the histories… if you know _anything_ about the people dying in the place of Exile…. Grandmother….please…"

They had been referring to Sam as his mate since they had arrived in the city and Jack hadn't bothered to disabuse anyone of the notion. He wasn't taking the chance that their place of wellness had some dipshit rule about relatives only.

While that thought ran through his head, he saw some of the anger run out of Caranastra.

She turned and started to walk along a small stream meandering through the garden. He fell in beside her.

"What I am going to tell you is more legend than fact, at least as far as the best of us know. There is nothing written, no record we can check."

She stopped talking for a moment and Jack bit back the need to yell.

"The first plague struck in the time before memories. When things became desperate enough it was decided that the sick would be moved through the Lockport to another world."

Sassy inhaled sharply.

"We sent our own people away?" she asked.

"Be quiet!" Caranastra snapped. "Do not speak of times and people of which you know nothing!"

The old woman took a deep, calming breath and went on.

"Do you understand why this was done, O'Neill?"

Jack nodded. There were similar things on Earth – leper colonies, tuberculosis hospitals. Caranastra nodded and gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"For centuries it worked," she said, "The disease seemed to have left with the Outcast. Then the Furlings came and lived among us. They gave us our current technology and while they were here the disease struck again. They helped us develop the cure and the vaccine and then they left. The last thing they told us to do was to bury the Lockport." Caranastra paused again and then sighed heavily. "But we could not. Even after centuries we had not given up hope that some had survived and would contact us someday. There was no chance, of course. They had sworn an oath to cut all ties to their Homeworld and the Code had been destroyed so that we could never contact them."

"So the Gahattans _are_ your distant relatives," Jack said, "and this is the same disease?"

"Yes, they are," Caranastra answered," but the disease has changed, at least here on Eeokkia."

Jack stopped walking and processed that information. Caranastra and Sassy outpaced him for a few steps and then turned. The answer to the plague on 311 was here, but Jack couldn't take the medicine back himself. He had now been exposed to the disease and couldn't go back until he was cleared. He could walk back to the Gate and contact them and they could send someone in a haz-mat suit to retrieve the vaccine. Someone on their end, or on 311, should be able to recreate it, even if the Eeokkians couldn't.

The problem was that he would have to leave Sam to do that.

Another hard decision, another thing he wasn't sure he could do, not even with millions of lives at stake. Jack felt like a dull knife was trying to gut him.

He turned and started walking back towards the building. The women hurried to catch up with him.

"What are you going to do, O'Neill?" Sassy asked.

"Good question," Jack muttered.

(0)


	59. Chapter 59

Jack was slouched in the chair, wondering if it was a universal truth that all chairs for visitors in all hospitals in all the worlds had to be uncomfortable. It was a pointless direction for his thoughts. But it was better than the endless circle of having to leave Sam to save friends and strangers in another place and desperately wishing there was any other way.

He'd shaken his head and smiled indulgently for decades at people who tried to tell him about soul mates and one true loves. He had adored Sara of course and believed that he was in love and they would be together forever, companions and partners if no longer passionate lovers.

Then he had met Sam; and the 'soul mate' cynic was now a faithful convert.

Falling in love with her had been like getting struck by a meteor but suffering no mortal wound, like being stunned, higher than an eagle one moment, deep in despair the next. Starving hungry for her but unable to eat; hot, cold, achingly turned on by the thought of her, full of hope and enthusiasm mixed with frustrations that had left him wiped out and exhausted.

When he was alone thoughts of Sam kept a perpetual goofy smile on his face. Off world missions were embraced with a mad, passionate intensity just because she was there; feeling invincible, feeling twenty years younger.

Loving Sam had not come with a warning sign. He had simply fallen into it as if from a diving board. There had been no time to think about what was happening. He had fallen in love with someone he'd had no right to fall in love with. He'd had no control over it, ever, and now it was a crazy, heart-stopping, dangerous thrill ride that he had to let take its course.

He already thought she was the most beautiful girl in this or any other galaxy. But it wasn't just her appearance; it was what he saw shining from her eyes, fusing with her beauty: the amazing, wonderful, fantastic spirit he saw every time he looked at her.

He loved her because when he looked into her eyes he felt home, no matter where they were. He could forget all the painful past, all his fears, he felt safe.

He felt that he'd finally found a place where he belonged, without secrets and pretense. It was a place he wanted to spend an eternity because her lovely, enchanting eyes slowed down time and made everything possible.

He wanted to be able to look into her incredible eyes, right into her amazing soul and he wanted that to last a lifetime.

All he had to do was keep her alive.

That thought started the gerbil wheel in his head spinning again, wrestling with duty and desire.

At that moment Sam stirred, made a soft, pain-filled sound and opened those incredible eyes.

"Jack," she said, softly.

He got her some water, more Tylenol and helped her settled into a comfortable position lying on her side.

He sat down again, leaned so far forward he was in danger of falling off the seat. He took both her hands between his and held tight, gazing at her in helpless adoration.

"How many men have told you you're beautiful?" he asked.

Flushed with fever, ice cold and burning hot, Sam managed to smile a little and answered,

"Only one that mattered."

Jack's heart constricted and Sam looked back at him as if she was the only person who had ever truly understood him, as if they had lived a thousand lifetimes and found each other in every single one of them.

They stayed like that for a long time and then she said,

"You have to go."

Jack started to vehemently shake his head and she went on a little more forcibly, straining her voice. "You have to go. You have to take the medicine to the Star Gate. Jack! The people on 311 need it and our people might be able to figure out how to make it work for humans, for me. The Eeokkians can't."

"It will take at least two days there and two back," Jack said.

She knew what he was implying. By the time he got back she could be in a coma. If there was no cure, they would never speak to each other again in this lifetime.

He would never again look into her eyes and be home.

"It's the only chance," Sam said.

"I can't," Jack said.

"You have to," she said.

"Why?"

"Because _I_ can't and you have to be strong for both of us," Sam paused and inched forward on the bed, trying to get closer to him.

Jack let go of her hands, clasped one hard and put his other hand on the back of her head, gently.

"I love you," she said, "You're a part of me and I want that forever and the only way I can have it is if you _go_. Now."

Then there were no more words. They both knew them all. Eventually Sam's eyes closed again and her breathing settled into the rhythm of fevered sleep. Jack sat with her for a long time, willing himself to move, somehow, to have the strength for both of them that she had asked of him.

At last he tucked her hand under the blanket and stood. He left the room, refusing to look back, and dragged all the pieces of his breaking heart out the door.

(0)


	60. Chapter 60

ack had learned the hard way that if he had to do something impossible then the only way to do it was quickly; not slowly but as fast as he could. Keeping his focus on the mission, putting one foot determinedly in front of the other, those were things he knew how to do the way he knew how to breathe.

As paralyzing and as horrible as it had been to stand up and walk away from her, there was a certain exhilaration in finally having something to _do._ He had a purpose and that alone was enough to get his blood singing and all his senses alert. Purpose for Jack was the most complete form of freedom.

He was not walking away from Sam. He was walking towards an answer. His mission had only one objective – to hold her, well and whole and alive – in his arms again.

With that as his only acceptable outcome, Jack O'Neil would combat crawl across the vacuum of space.

The building was not all that big but it didn't have any kind of communication system. There was no way to page Aanandini so that he could bully – errr- get a sample of the medication from her. It was late at night – okay so some people might consider it nearly morning and he had no idea when he had last gotten a decent few hours sleep. His knees were on at about eight on the O'Neill pain scale but he didn't usually start worrying about that until they got to twelve so he ignored it. He spent a frustrating amount of time searching the nearly deserted he found himself at the intersection of the administration corridors. As he started to turn to the left and seek the office of the main administrator something he saw in the office window caused him to duck back quickly out of sight.

The office belonged to the man who ran the place – a tall, sleek man with raven black fur and bright yellow-gold eyes. He reminded Jack strongly of a panther. His name was Acharyanandana.

He was standing up in front of his desk speaking with great animation to Aanandini.

Well, no it was more than animation. It looked like they were in the middle of full blown argument, though Jack's mind skittered sideways from the term 'cat fight'.

He could hear their raised voices through the walls and glass but he could not make out everything they were saying. It had been the noise more than seeing them that had alerted him in the first place. At this point in this life, Jack was pure instinct, pure training, pure experience. What he did now was faster than thought because it bypassed thought.

But he was certain he had heard Aanandini say 'Samantha Carter' and 'cure.'

He waited, watching , barely peering around the corner as the argument escalated and Aanandini tried to end it by whirling around and storming out of the room. Acharyanandana's hand shot out and caught her wrist, turning her around and pulling her towards him –not with violence but with clear intent.

It became utterly obvious there was more between these two than being co-workers. Acharyanandana's body language changed, softened, from the tension of conflict into the willingness to listen. He gazed at her pleadingly from his big golden eyes, his brow furrowed.

Aanandini remained stiff however, resistantly rigid, and her expression of outrage and determination did not change. She twisted her wrist out of his hand, whirled around again and this time she got out the door. Jack flattened himself against the wall, listened to her footsteps approaching and just as she got to the intersection, he reached out, snagged her by the arm and pulled up towards him.

Jack pinned her against the wall, using superior height and strength and a stare like a laser canon to hold her there. None of these people knew how far outside the rules Jack was willing to play when something he wanted was at stake. He had left pieces of his soul all over the Earth doing what he had been ordered to do. He was willing to leave a huge chunk of it here if it would cure Sam.

"What was that about?" he asked. His voice was too soft to carry but it seemed to shiver through all her bones.

"Nothing," she began and then swallowed. His eyes were still boring into hers and he knew she was lying.

"If it was about Sam, then it wasn't nothing," Jack continued, "and you're going to tell me what you and your boyfriend were saying about her. Now."

"Let go of me," she said.

"I'm not holding you," Jack pointed out.

But he straightened up marginally but didn't back away.

Aanandini looked away from him, unable to hold his gaze any longer. She licked her lips nervously.

"Samantha Carter," she said, "She belongs to you? To your heart?"

"I'm sorry?" he said, knowing full well what she meant but choosing to play dumb.

Aanandini shook her head slowly and saw right through him.

"Like Acharyanandana belongs to me," she said, certainly. "For all his stubbornness and refusal to believe the Prohibitions may no longer be needed."

She looked up again and now the challenge was in her electric blue eyes.

"It would be easier for me to show you," she said, "and we need your help. You'll have to come with me and you'll have to trust me."

Jack didn't trust her but he was willing to go with her. He stepped back from the wall and made a gentlemanly gesture for her to proceed.

"After you," he said.

(0)

In the chill misty night, Jack followed Aanandini into a section of town he would normally avoid even in daylight. The urban city that housed the place of wellness was a far cry from the quaint village on the outskirts of the woods. Jack had yet to see anything that looked like a police force.

He followed her into a back alley, wishing for his black ops gear and making due with the khaki green as best he could. The puddles of light from overhead did little against the darkness and rain and were easily skirted.

She finally stopped at a shadowed door, knocked three times and when a voice said, "What?" she answered, "Crossroad."

The door opened and Jack took in their surroundings instantly. He didn't know if there was a reason for the code word, or if it had been picked randomly. He'd never been able to find out why Eisenhower had been code named Duckpin during WWII. If it had been picked randomly whatever was going on here had been carefully considered.

They moved into a small hallway that instantly had Jack's hackles standing up. The door had been opened by a ginger striped man in dark clothing whose hidden eyes had swept Jack suspiciously.

"This is one of the strangers you spoke of?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, "This is Jack O'Neill. O'Neill, this is Kunjabihari, my brother."

Jack nodded and kept his fingers over the hilt of the Beretta strapped to his leg.

Kunjabihari nodded back stiffly and then turned to continue down the hall. Aanandini followed him without question.

Jack had a lot of questions but he followed too.

The hallway eventually opened into a brightly lit room. It was full of glass beakers and tables and people in a motley assortment of long coats. It looked like every lab Jack had ever seen, except that it appeared makeshift and was clearly illegal.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"My brother and I are both physicians," she answered. "We're also tired of watching our patients die because the Prohibitions prevent us from doing any kind of research into curing them!"

Her voice had risen passionately and she broke off, looked away, stared at her hands for a moment and then went on in a softer tone, "You came here looking for help for thousands and now one of you is dying; and those thousands will continue to die!"

Kunjabihari put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. He turned to Jack.

"We want to help," he said, "But it is vital to keep the secrecy of this place. You understand?"

"Oh keeping secrets is one of my specialties," Jack said, mildly. He paused. It was hard to reveal the deepest feelings of his heart to anyone, even Sam, much less to a pair of strangers. He took a deep breath."If you're trying to save Sam, I'll do whatever you ask."

The brother and sister exchanged glances.

"We do not understand why you have not also become sick," Aanandini said, "We think you must have some kind of natural immunity that we can use to alter our medicine and save Samantha Carter."

Jack didn't allow hope even the slightest chance of taking hold. He had been hopeful in the past and seen it all dashed on the rocks of reality.

"What do you need?"

"A blood sample," Kunjabihari said.

Jack immediately took off his jacket and offered his arm. If it would save Sam they could bleed him dry.

"I still need medicine to take to the other planet – your place of Exile – for the people there," he said, as they swabbed his arm and produced a needle that looked like it was normally used on large livestock.

Jack wasn't squeamish but he chose to look away.

"We will get you what you need and then take you to a shorter route back to the Lockport," Aanandini said.

"Less walking?" Jack asked, as she slapped a bandage over the spot on his arm.

"From north of the city, there is a pass over the mountain that should make your journey at least a day shorter," Kunjabihari answered.

Jack considered that. "That would be good," he said, finally.

"Come with me," Aanandini said, "We have a sample of our vaccine and the medicine packed for you."

(0)


	61. Chapter 61

It was Kunjabihari who drove Jack out of the city. They pushed the vehicle silently to the edge of town and then started the motor and drove away in a gray, drizzly dawn.

Since neither of them was much inclined to conversation Jack took time to eat, swallow a generous handful of Tylenol and then stretched out on the floor to sleep.

It seemed he had just closed his eyes when the vehicle slowed, pulled over and stopped. He sat up, stretched and tried not to wince. Who would have thought he would one day wish the Star Gate only took them to nice warm, desert planets?

He double checked his pack for the medicine and while he was doing that he noticed Kunjabihari pulling a similar pack from a storage compartment under the floor boards.

He sat back on his heels and studied the other man closely.

"I am going with you," he said to Jack's unspoken question.

Jack's eyebrows went up and Kunjabihari went on. "I used to come up here as a boy and hike with my family, often staying overnight in the forest. I know the way and there is a rule here about hiking – no one goes alone."

Jack got out of the vehicle and snapped his pack in place. It made sense and it wouldn't do anyone any good if he got lost.

"Welcome on board," he said, as a way of saying thanks.

Kunjabihari was obviously in good shape, younger than Jack and it was doubtful he'd slow Jack down in anyway. The truth, if Jack admitted it, was that he was more likely to slow down the younger man. A full day's hike downhill, followed by another full day back uphill, wasn't something he was relishing.

The goal, after all, was not to completely wreck his knees before he got around to replacing them; but if wrecked knees were what it took to get Sam back then he'd sacrifice both of them without a single qualm.

And when he got her back he would hold her so tight she'd have to beg him to let her breathe. He'd kiss her until she pleaded for mercy; and he was going to find a way that the Air Force would let him go.

He wrenched his focus back onto his current mission. They left the vehicle parked on the shoulder of the dirt road in a place that looked as if it had been used for parking for a long time. He adjusted his pack on his shoulders and followed Kunjabihari over the edge of the road and into the woods.

They hiked in silence for a long time, over a section that was well used and clearly for recreational purposes. At last Kunjabihari turned onto a narrower, steeper section and the going got harder. Jack didn't mind. Sam was suffering. He felt like he should be too. He thrived on difficult situations. He harder he could drive himself, the happier he was.

Kunjabihari surprised him by speaking suddenly.

"Aanandini has told me that Samantha Carter is of your heart," he said.

Jack ground his teeth and grunted a nonanswer. Kunjabihari smiled a bit.

"She said that it is obvious, even if you will not speak of it," he said, "I understand."

Kunjabihari paused for a moment and his face became very serious, lost and slightly faraway. "I lost my mate of many years after a long illness. In those last years there were times when I felt our love was a thing of the past, as if we had grown apart and become strangers. Yet when she was so sick I would have done anything to save her. That is when we began the research into new medicines," he sighed deeply, "There are those who take the Prohibitions too far. Finding ways to cure disease could not be what the Others meant. We went underground but we couldn't save my mate. As she lay there so close to death's door I wanted nothing more than to save her, to bring her back to me and begin our life over again. I wanted to make up to her for all the times I wasn't there. I would have taken even for just one night with her, a night that would have to last a lifetime for me. You feel the same for this woman who walks at your side?"

"Yes," Jack answered bluntly. He didn't like hearing his thoughts spoken out loud by another person. It reminded him sharply of the extreme joy he had that he had found Sam and the extreme terror he felt at the same time that he was going to lose her.

Kunjabihari straightened up. "Then we will find a way to save her. There is only one thing I ask in return, though our help is not conditional. I will do my best no matter what your answer."

"What do you want?"

"When we get to the Lockport – that which you call the Star Gate – I wish to go to your world."

Jack opened his mouth to protest but Kunjabihari cut him off. "You must have a way! A better method of containing disease than we have. I am willing to submit to any form of quarantine you ask of me. I want to learn from your people. I want you to show me everything you know of fighting disease and then I wish to travel to the place of Exhile and meet my brethren there and learn from them as well. O'Neill, when my mate died I was left with nothing here but the fight against death. The moment Aanandini told me about you I knew that you could give me more weapons in this fight."

Jack thought about the civilization on 311 for a moment – the two cultures who lived and worked side by side to create a clean modern world, the culture on the verge of slipping the limits of gravity and venturing into space. Kunjabihari was in for a shock.

But he was right. They did have ways to quarantine him and this kind of cultural exchange was one of the big reasons Jack went through the Gate, though he would murder the person who told Daniel that.

Sam and Daniel went through the Gate in the pursuit of knowledge, of discovery. Teal'c had done it for his people.

Jack had done it because his government had charged him with finding a way to combat the Goa'uld and he had done it with the same attention to detail and commitment to excellence that he gave to every assignment. But he also saw the value in forming alliances and experience had taught him that level of technology really didn't matter in the long run.

"You're going to have to be put in a sealed container and taken to a special room and you will have to stay there until which time I am assured by our medical staff that you are not carrying anything that will infect my planet."

He watched Kunjabihari closely to see if the man would protest but he only nodded.

"You will have to watch our way carefully then, so that you can return to the city without me. Can you drive the vehicle?"

Jack shrugged. He was already watching carefully and he was never as tuned out about anything as he claimed to be. The Air Force had trained him to fly cutting edge fixed-wing aircraft. Of course he could drive.

"Yes," he answered.

"Good," Kunjabihari said, firmly.

They fell into silence again for the rest of the downhill walk.

(0)

Jack had seen the look of astonishment on so many faces over the decades that he thought he should be used to it by now. But he had never quite seen someone look astonished at the activation of the wormhole _and_ have all the fur on his head and neck stand straight up.

He barked a few orders at Walter about antibiotics and Sam being sick and what he wanted from the med staff, confirmed that Walter had gotten all the instructions clear and shut down the Gate.

It fired back up a few minutes later, frizzing Kunjabihari's hair again.

Kunjabihari's hair was still standing up when Dr. Carmichael came through wearing one of the isolation suits and looking every bit the alien.

Jack exchanged the medicines and sample of his blood with the doctor and gave him a blunt rundown of Carter's condition. Carmichael gave Jack what medications he thought might work, based on their research on 311 and then opened the coffin-like box that would take Kunjabihari to Earth.

"I promise it will only be for a short time," Carmichael said, "We'll take you right to the isolation room and open it."

Kunjabihari nodded and turned to Jack. "Is there a custom among your people for expressing gratitude?"

Jack offered his right hand and shook the Eeokkian's.

"Is there anything you want me to tell your sister?"

"No, we said everything to each other last night. She knew my intention. O'Neill, Aanandini is brilliant, gifted at what she does. If someone can help your Samantha it is her. Trust her."

Jack nodded. He'd trust her the way he trusted everyone he didn't know. But he didn't need to say that.

"You remember the clearing I showed you on the way down?" Kunjabihari went on. Jack nodded. "There is enough daylight for you to reach it if you start back now. Do not attempt the forest at night. Camp there, no matter what your heart tells you differently.

Jack was well trained enough not to glance at Carmichael to see what he made of that advice.

Kunjabihari entered the capsule and it hissed as it sealed. Jack dialed the Gate again and watched Carmichael steer it back through.

Then, alone on a foreign world, Jack turned and started back up the mountain trail.

(0)


	62. Chapter 62

In spite of Kunjabihari's heartfelt and sincere advice about stopping for the night, Jack pressed on up the hill through the forest and the night. Whatever it was that had tried to drop down on him from above was now lying dead on the trail, killed by three shots from his Beretta. Nothing else had bothered him during the rest of his journey. Dawn was breaking as he cleared the rise onto the flat terrain where they had left the vehicle. He was a bit shocked that it was still there, having been left abandoned and unlocked. Apparently the less savory population of the city didn't venture too far afield.

He crawled into the back, chewed some more aspirin, slapped a heated first aid pack on his left knee – the really bad one, the one that was threatening to come apart – and lay back for a moment.

Now that he was in the vehicle, without having to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, he couldn't keep the images of Sam out of his head. He had no idea what he was going to find when he returned. The images of the people dying on 311 swam up behind his closed eyelids – row upon row of beds each holding a victim shaking with fever or in excruciation pain as their organs shut down, heads and necks with bald patches and bleeding lesions. The coma, when it came, was a blessing.

The idea of this happening to Sam, of having to watch it happen, was razor sharp.

God damn he had never wanted to be in love again and this was a huge part of the reason why.

Which didn't help him at all. He had fallen in love with Sam in a quiet, absolute, final way. He had committed to her the same way.

He got up and dragged himself into the cockpit. He'd watched carefully and he knew how to operate it.

But he wanted to get back to Sam – and now – so he couldn't help but wish this thing was an F-15.

Mach 2.5 sounded good right now.

(0)

Aanandini met him at the end of the hallway. Jack could tell she had been crying and assumed it was over her brother choosing to leave the planet, or possibly another fight with her lover over scientific research.

He wanted it to be those things. He desperately wanted it to be those things.

Anything but sorrow over the worsening condition of one of her patients.

When he was close enough he asked, "Sam?"

Aanandini gestured with her head, lightly, and said, "Go and see her."

Well what the _fuck _did that mean? Jack wondered as he walked towards her door and shaking legs, wondering what he was going to find and thinking about all the years when he had _known_ that there was just no way for them to be together and how he was just no way, no how good enough for her and he had still been unable to stop thinking up ways to make it work. For years his mind had said 'let go' and he had tried for a time and all that time his heart was saying 'hold on.'

He'd dreamed of her almost every night only to wake up alone with his teeth clenched and his heart aching.

He got to the door, took a deep breath and entered.

Something slammed into him with the force of a sonic boom. Slim arms reached up around his neck, held him tight and he put his arms around her more to keep from being pulled over than because he had some cognitive understanding of what was going on.

"Sam?" It came out as a gasp.

"Yeah," she answered, clinging to him.

He held tight, afraid to look.

"Are you all right?"

"Getting there," she said, her voice muffled in his jacket.

"How?"

She loosened her grip on him and looked up into his eyes. She was still pale and looked as fragile as spun sugar. But her eyes were bright and she looked happy and god, he was just drowning in them.

"Your blood has a natural antibiotic in it. I think it must be connected to the Ancient gene. It certainly explains why you never get so much as a head cold. Aanandini managed to isolate it and add it to their current medications and this mutated it into a medication that stops the disease from making proteins….."

"Carter!" Jack interrupted.

She responded automatically, breaking off, swallowing and staring up at him with wide eyes.

"Am I going to care about the rest of what you're about to say?" Jack asked.

Her mouth twitched in a hint of a smile. "No, sir," she answered.

"Then shut up," Jack said, muzzy with affection, already leaning down to seek her mouth for a kiss, because kissing her was what he did when he couldn't find the words to express what he was feeling.

He kissed her until his knees screamed for him to stop and she suddenly went limp and lax in his arms and he remembered that two days ago she had been dying. He let go of her only to turn her around and put his arm around her waist and help her back to bed, where she collapsed on her side and lay quietly with her eyes closed, all her energy expended.

Jack sat on the bed beside her and dared to stroke his fingers through her hair. There were small patches of it missing but no more came away when he stopped to crawl over her, lie down on his side behind her and curl his body around her. She smelled like minty shampoo and the floral body lotion she liked and he realized she must have gotten cleaned up recently, which meant she had not been on the way to recovery for that long. He nuzzled into the silky blond mass of her hair and sighed with equal parts relief and exhaustion.

"Do you know how much time I spent looking at your hair, wondering what it would be like to touch?" he asked.

"My hair? Really?" She turned a little and tried to look at him.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Because I spent a lot of time looking at your ass and wondering if you were looking at mine," she said.

There was the slightest hesitation and then she could feel his body shaking with laughter. It felt wonderful.

"Jack?"

"Yeah," he sighed, words slurring, "I looked at that too."

Sam made a humming sound of satisfaction and snuggled back into him.

"I really need to sleep," she admitted reluctantly.

Jack was almost completely asleep already.

"Then do it, Colonel. That's an order," he said.

"Yes, sir," Sam breathed happily.

(0)


	63. Chapter 63

They had driven thirty eight miles west of Colorado Springs on U.S. 24 to one mile west of the town of Lake George. Then they turned left on County Road 90 and drove south for six miles to County Road 92. Continuing south on 92 for five more miles they had arrived at last at Eleven Mile State Park.

Their reservation had been for a lakefront camping site in the North Shore Campground. Jack had brought his fishing gear.

Their campsite was nestled into a grove of trees. The truck was on the parking pad. They had spent the day fishing on the lake in the rowboat that was leaned up against the side of the truck and Jack hadn't even seemed to mind that she had fallen asleep for a while, lulled by the peace and quiet and gentle rocking of the boat.

Now dark had settled and Jack had fulfilled her wish for a blazing campfire. The truck was filled on one side with wood from his house. He was out of his beach chair at the moment, adding logs and poking at the fire until he was satisfied with it. Then he came back to sit beside her, lowering himself into the chair while picking up the coffee mug he'd set on the ground when he first got up.

"Happy?" he asked.

She wasn't sure if he meant with the fire or with life in general but she nodded.

"Yeah," she answered. "It's nice here. Safe."

Jack grunted in understanding. It _was_ nice. They had been able to drive in and set up camp in the broad light of day. There was no threat of an attack. No need to set up a perimeter or stand watch; safe drinking water close to hand, not to mention restrooms, showers, a grill and the luxury of a warm fire. There had been steaks and campfire roasted potatoes for dinner and apple pie from the cooler for dessert. Breakfast would be French toast and bacon and scrambled eggs. There was a still a pot of coffee being kept warm.

There was a tent tall enough for even him to stand up in, with sleeping bags on the floor. He had laid them side by side at first but later when he went in to get his jacket he found that she had zipped them together. It was one of their silent conversations.

It was wonderful, to sit like this, basking peacefully in other's company in the cool, aspen-scented night. There was no guilt in taking pleasure in the other's presence, no need to hide that pleasure. They hadn't just come here just to relax. They'd come here specifically to relax with each other. Being together, appreciating each other wasn't just okay tonight – it was the whole point.

That part too was 'safe.'

"Can I ask you something?" Jack said suddenly, staring into the fire and sipping coffee.

"Of course," she answered.

"On Eeokkia, when I came back, you were already up and moving by the time I got to your door. Why?"

"I heard you coming," she said, "I couldn't just lie there and wait any more. I wanted to be in your arms again."

"You heard me? I talked to Aanandini but that was at the end of the hall."

"No, I heard your footsteps."

"My footsteps?"

"Yes."

"You recognize my footsteps?"

"Of course I do. I've been listening for them for eight years."

The chairs were close enough together for her to press her leg against his, her arm against his; and she slipped her fingers into his and laced them tightly.

Jack realized that he'd recognize hers too, even if she was walking barefoot across a cotton floor.

She tilted her head back to rest against the sand chair and stretched her toes towards the fire.

"Cold?" He asked.

Sam shook her head and then turned to look at him, the way she wanted to look at him all the time but couldn't; and she didn't look away immediately just because she didn't have to. Here, she didn't have to control the desire in her expression or the pounding of her rebellious heart.

Starlight brought out a soft shine in the silver in Jack's hair The fire was playing off the folds of the rugged clothes that were as quintessentially 'Jack' as any of his military uniforms. Firelight warmed and deepened Jack's equally rugged face; contentment and safety eased his features into something heart-stoppingly male

His expression had none of the wary, hard alertness that she was used to seeing in situations similar to this. The gaze he returned steadily was soft and happy with the barest hint of reflected flame. He offered her one of his secretive smiles just before taking a sip from his coffee mug.

Sam let her own gaze drift down the long line of Jack's legs, admiring the cling of denim. Her imagination ran a little wild for a moment and she let it.

Then he said, "Are you sure you're feeling completely recovered?"

It had been three weeks since her journey to the threshold of death and only a week since she'd been cleared to return to Earth and she still wasn't cleared to go back to work.

Daniel was currently on Eeokkia – freshly vaccinated and safe – working with the natives to better translate the Prohibitions and trying to explain how the world had changed since the Prohibitions had been given to them. Dragging them into the current inter-solar-system situation wasn't going to be easy but Daniel was up to the challenge. He was also happy as a pig in mud to have found another Furling connection. The Gahattans and the Eeokkians were reunited and Daniel was helping them work on a trade treaty.

Most importantly they had conquered the plague and the Gahattans were recovering, with hopes that it would never mutate again.

"I'm fine," she said.

Jack swept her with a gaze that went from concerned to smoky in the space of a heartbeat.

"You are _way_ more than fine," he said, finally. "I'm thinking it would be good to head for the sleeping bags but this is kind of nice. It would be a shame to waste the fire, especially when it's what you told me you wanted."

Sam nodded. If they moved they would have to douse the fire completely, then wash out the mugs and coffee pot and make sure all the food was safely stowed in the truck.

And truthfully she wasn't ready yet to trade in this contented moment for the cold chill of sleeping bags, even with Jack sliding in beside her with the unbearable ecstasy of his flesh against hers as they sought each other's warmth.

A shooting star changed the conversation briefly to astronomy but the next thing Jack knew he was passionately defending the F-15 Eagle against her equally passionate love of the F-16.

"Come on," he said, "You can't beat the F-15 for startup sounds. That ascending turbine in all those bursts, getting higher and higher until it hits full speed and that burst it makes when it peaks and then the descending purr back to idle. Then you get to repeat the whole thing with the second engine. It's just _sweet,_ especially when you get a whole squadron of them firing up together."

Sam looked at him and with military brashness answered,

"So while the F-15 pilots and the ground crew are getting hard-ons from the noise, the F-16s are already in the air and ready for action?"

Jack laughed and it was the sweetest sound Sam could ever hear.

"Yeah, something like that," he admitted, "The F-15 is way more fuel efficient."

"The F-15 is a bigger radar target. I'll take burning a little more fuel over being easier to see any day."

"All the F-15 community does is air training," Jack said and then launched into the kind of dialogue that was incomprehensible to every other member of SG1," F-16s have a training schedule that includes air-to-ground, so they get less practice _and_ it isn't that often the practice includes BFM with a clean jet. Drop tanks, ECM Pod, LANTIRN or LITENING Pod yadda yadda… are more the norm. With the F-16s, the BFM exercises usually involve not just doing air-to-air but the goal is to accomplish their A2G mission. The F-15 is added to the mission planning to provide F-16s training time in how to go against an A2A threat AND press on and do their primary mission. Both sides get something out of the training for sure. So the friendly match ups aren't always what the casual jet enthusiast expects. The USAF F-15 A-D community has seen every trick you can throw at them and are very aware of what they, themselves can't and shouldn't do in BFM."

Jack broke off abruptly, realizing he'd just said more in three minutes than he had in three weeks.

"We'll yeah," Sam shrugged, "That's all the F-15 pilots train for. The F-16s….we have a real job. "

Jack laughed, again.

"In a real knife fight the F-16 is the quicker fighter," Sam said, "and at a distance the Viper spanks the crap out of the Eagle. We can get a read on them way the hell out there because they're so damned big."

Jack leveled a shrewd and calculating look at her, demanding even in the firelight.

"You know a lot of what you're claiming depends on the stick jock in the cockpit. Pilot doesn't know how to fly the full extent of his flight envelope, either plane will suck."

Sam's eyes narrowed and she leaned closer to him, inhaling the scent of him, the clean woodsy male smell.

"You haven't had any complaints about how I handle a stick so far," she said in a breathy whisper.

Jack gave another bark of laughter and spilled some of his coffee as he leaned over to kiss her.

"How about I schedule us some flight hours at Peterson this week and we take them both up and you can show me?"

"You're on, General," she answered.

Sam snuggled as close as she could to him with the arms of the chair between them. Jack put his arm around her, rested it against the back of her chair and let his fingers play with her hair and ear and the soft skin on her neck. Sam let her fingers play along his thigh, running from his knee to his hip over the rough denim.

The heavens turned a few more degrees and they watched Cassiopeia appear above the trees. But still they sat in comfortable silence and the fire snapped and burst and hissed and logs collapsed. It burned out until it was little more than a warm memory and the only light came from the stars and it was finally time for bed.

(0)

My eternal thanks to my retired Air Force friend first for his service to our country and secondly for Jack's dialogue in this chapter. This will finish up this section of Moonlight and Steel


	64. Chapter 64

In this section Sam and Jack steal a weekend together and a sudden visitor disrupts. their time together and throws Sam's heart a curve ball. More Sam-angst than whump. Established relationship, though still undercover. Timeframe is after the end of Season 8 but before Season 9.

Thanks to Bluemoonmaverick for the beta. I've been a little under the weather and the extra set of eyes was invaluable.

(0)

Unable to sleep as dawn had crawled slowly past the blinds and painted the room in shades of pink and gold, Sam lay on her side with her back to Jack and paged as silently as possible through the latest astrophysics journal. She wasn't sure why she continued to read what her fellow scientists were currently espousing. Most of the time they were so wrong she wanted to call them and explain why. But the explanation always had a planet with a strange designation of numbers and letters and hyphens and she had signed a little thing called a nondisclosure agreement.

She sighed, flipped the magazine closed and rolled over onto her other side. There was just enough light in the room to quietly enjoy the simple luxury of looking at Jack.

Awake and in motion, he was breathtakingly handsome, lean, controlled, alert, stunning in his masculinity. Asleep he was beautiful, the granite hardness of his features smoothed to marble, tension eased away. Here, in the house he had built, on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood, where he knew he was safe and he had the best (Asgard enhanced and Sam Cater-tweaked) anti-surveillance and security features available, he'd sleep on his back the way he always did, but he'd sprawl, sigh, relax, bend a little and drop into deep sleep. Jack woke up instantly, with crystal clarity, perfectly aware of his surroundings, balanced and prepared to act. He could recharge as quickly in fifteen minutes of sleep as he could in eight hours.

Off-world, he was different, and Sam had stood enough night watches with Jack being the most interesting thing to watch to know the difference. In a place where he did not feel entirely safe, Jack slept like a predator – silent, still even in REM sleep, all his senses alert. He was as dangerous asleep as he was when he was awake, even though he almost always managed to look gentle, even a little goofy, more absentminded than Daniel.

Asleep he almost looked vulnerable at times.

But if he was caught in the wrong moment or someone was stupid about how they approached him, he'd wake instantly, with his hand on his weapon or your throat and sometimes one in each hand.

Sam tingled with the need to touch him gently awake. He was starting to adjust to sharing his bed again, but she was still cautious. She propped her elbow up and rested her cheek on her palm and watched him.

She was slightly startled to see his hand move. Well, flop actually, lifting from his chest and falling without aim in her direction. His hand landed on top of the one she was using to keep from falling forward, groped for a moment and then curled firmly around hers. She felt the power in his long fingers, the broad, flatness of his palm. She felt the callous over the heel of his hand from the kick of the P90. She knew because she had a smaller one of her own.

His eyes opened as his head turned towards her. He blinked and then smiled in a sexy, playful way that made her completely forget what she had been reading.

"I thought I told you no work this weekend," he said.

"Watching you is not work," she said.

"Then what were you reading?" he asked, and Sam shook her head in wonder. She had thought she wasn't disturbing him. Jack woke up if a fly landed on the window. She didn't know why she'd believed that the turning of pages would get by him. "It's not one of those romance novels that gets you all teary is it?"

"No," she said, "and that was only that one time! And you didn't have to come bursting through the door with your weapon drawn."

"I could hear you crying!" he protested.

"If a loaded weapon would have helped the situation I could have done that myself!"

"Okay," he conceded, then asked more hopefully, "Was it one of those romance novels that gets you all hot?"

"God, you're such a guy sometimes," she groaned.

She reluctantly pulled her hand out from under his, turned over and reached behind her just long enough to get the magazine and put it on the bed between them.

"_Astronomy and Astrophysics_," Jack repeated the title of the journal as he picked it up and then looked at her from under arched brows, "You know, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as work."

"It's _not_," she protested and tried to reach for it.

"Oh hell no," Jack said, holding it far out to his side of the bed, "I said no work this weekend, and you agreed. In fact, we did a pinkie swear. You wouldn't violate a pinkie swear would you?"

Sam sat up, eyed the journal being held out over the floor just out of reach and said, "Unless you want to make it fall under the heading of 'other duties as assigned' nothing in my job description requires the reading of current scientific journals. Most of the time they're useless anyway!"

"Most of the time," Jack repeated, as if it had a deep and significant meaning.

Sam sighed and rolled her eyes. "There's nothing in that journal that is the least bit useful to R & D or the SGC."

"Carter, you're a genius scientist who is about to take over an R & D program. And clearly I am none of those things, so tell me slowly in small words how this is not useful."

"Well, because they aren't even close," she made a half-hearted attempt to get her magazine back, and when he threatened to throw it she backed off. She sighed and glared at him, "I mean, take the article on quasars. They've spent ten pages and countless mathematical equations comparing and contrasting the competing theories regarding the size of the clusters and they are just sure that structures larger than about 1.2 billion light-years should not exist, but we know from being out there that there is a cluster composed of 73 quasars and spanning about 1.6 billion light-years in most directions, and it's 4 billion light-years across at its widest point…."

"Are you speaking English?" Jack interrupted.

"Stop it," she chided gently, "and because we know that neither theory is even close to being correct."

"_You_ know that," Jack said, "I'm pretty sure I don't know that."

"Well they sure as hell don't know that, and I could write a paper proving them both wrong and …."

"Okay,that's it!" Jack said, in his _'out of patience'_ voice, "See? Writing papers. _Working!_"

He sat up and tossed the journal across the room. It landed next to but not quite in the waste basket.

"Hey!" Sam said.

She sat up, but in the next moment he had snagged her around the waist and pulled her across him. Sam laughed as she settled down with her knees pressing in to the mattress on either side of his hips and then she groaned a little when she realized how morning hard he was. She slid back and forth suggestively just to watch his reaction.

Jack arched and groaned and his eyes went hot and dark as they bored into hers.

But his smile was still lopsided and a little goofy.

"This got my name on it?" she asked, teasing, moving her lower body again, rubbing against the 'this' in question.

"Yes, but I'd rather it had your mouth on it," he answered, lifting up again and then grinning again because he knew the effort it was for her to resist the jolt that went through her.

The jolt was composed of several overlapping emotions – surprise that Jack would so clearly articulate what he wanted, playful teasing melting into hot desire in her eyes, willingness to take control…..

She leaned forward, sliding her hands from his wrists on her hips to his forearms until she was bent over him and kissing him. She kissed him as if it was something new, something she'd always wanted to do and was now better than she had ever imagined it could be. It spread ripples of arousal running deep in their blood.

"That's what you want?" she asked.

Jack's eyes changed, lost the playfulness altogether and turned soft, longing. His lips parted, and he inhaled a little and Sam knew it was the only answer she was going to get.

He came up into half a sit up, pushing her back up as he did. He pulled his t-shirt – new for once, from a three pack she had made him pick up at Costco when they were stocking up for the weekend – over his head and tossed it thoughtlessly onto the floor. Then he reached for the edge of her camisole and dragged it off, forcing her arms up, blinding her in pale pink fabric for a moment before it joined his shirt in the discard pile.

He sat up all the way and pulled her into his arms and then it was a blur of skin touching and hands sliding and groping and kneading and petting until she pushed him back down onto the pillow and moved off him to begin working her way down his body with long, slow, deliberate touches of her mouth and hands.

She did it just to listen to him gasp and groan and grind his teeth, jaw clenched against the inarticulate curses clawing at the back of his throat. She lingered over his ribs and navel and taut skin over his hips and loved how his muscles strained against the instinct of moving.

Jack asked, but he never demanded. He never forced. Most of the time, he was content to let her do whatever she wanted.

By the time she got to the waist band of his pajama bottoms he was panting and had one fist gripping the sheets. The other hand was wandering her body, whatever he could reach - her shoulder, her breast, her hip, sliding down her back and under the loose cotton pajamas and pushing them away.

She helped him by kicking them off and then he reciprocated by lifting up and using his feet to shed his own.

Then Sam leaned on one elbow and closed her eyes and wrapped her hand around the base of Jack's cock and slid her mouth over the crown. It was an explosion of sensation for Jack, spreading out like fireworks, too intense, too wonderful. He groaned as if he had been wounded and made himself hold his head up, keep looking, instead of collapsing in a puddle against the pillows.

Sam, lovely eyes closed, expression of pure bliss, intent, her lips sealed around his shaft, sliding all the way down until her mouth met her hand.

"Oh_, faaahhh,_" Jack choked and Sam figured he was trying to say _fuck_ and failed.

Jack felt a faint smile change the shape of her mouth, and she did it again - slid almost all the way off and then all the way down again. Unhurried. Clearly savoring it. Jack felt every millimeter of the slide of her wet mouth, the hot, humid channel and her teasing tongue.

And she kept doing that, over and over, never really speeding up, dabbing with her tongue at random moments in calculated places, making Jack groan and claw the sheets, and at one point he had enough coherency to realize that his hand was actually gripping her thigh.

He slipped his hand between her legs, curled his fingers around the soft skin of her inner thigh and pulled. Sam complied, eagerly, never stopping what she was doing but lifting her leg so that her knee rested on his hip and his fingers slid in and she gasped a little and then groaned around his cock, tightening her hand.

Sam was thinking about remembering to breathe, and about tilting her hips towards him, and about begging not to stop because she was getting so close. Her body was already doing all that for her. She closed her eyes tighter and concentrated on getting him as close as she was.

_Jack, Jack, oh god, yes, just like that…._

Sam broke off abruptly and pulled away, startling him. She moved with predatory speed, flinging her leg over him again, straddling him and plunging down. Jack caught on quickly enough, thrusting upward and catching her hips as she ground on him, and she was really the most incredible thing he had ever seen – head thrown back, eyes tight shut, fingertips resting on his abs, working them both towards an endless fall into glory.

Finally Sam couldn't stop it anymore – not when she was this full and hot and swollen – and she lost all self-control, and she fell forward, collapsing on him and crying out as she came, and through her own blinding storm of pleasure she felt Jack throw an arm around her shoulders and the other around her hips.

Her only regret was that she couldn't watch him because as his breathing got sharper and the tension in the muscles of his back and shoulders got tighter and his groans became louder Jack put one hand on the back of her head and sealed his mouth over hers, kissing her, pushing in with his tongue, pushing deep and fast and hard with his cock. Sam held him tight and her cries were muffled in his mouth as she clenched and arched and he went off like a rocket inside her

They held the peak, straining, trying to breathe, and then it was ebbing away slowly, and their mouths broke apart, abandoning kissing in favor of breathing, still panting. Sam turned her face away slowly, to rest stunned against Jack's shoulder and try to get her breathing under control.

"_Holy fuck," _Jack murmured.

And Sam chuckled a little bit.

"Way to ruin the afterglow," she said.

Jack rolled until they were on their sides, and he was cradling her in his arms.

"I love you," he said.

Sam smiled, snuggled closer.

"That's better."

It was followed by silence; a happy, contented, exhausted silence. Jack was still idly stroking her, almost absently, running warm firm fingertips down her arm, the back of his hand between her breasts, along her collarbone. Sam sighed with contentment and settled her head on his chest and his forearm.

They were supposed to spend the day tinkering with the Indian, which was currently hidden in the back of Jack's pickup truck, after he had picked her up at a strip mall twenty miles away because they were still both working for the Air Force and Jack was a master at clandestine activities.

She loved working on the Indian and she loved doing that with Jack.

But right now, she'd be utterly content if they changed plans and just stayed in bed all day.

(0)


	65. Chapter 65

am was working in the garage on the Indian. She was having a hard time with 'hot' starting it, and after taking it partially apart and having a spirited debate with Jack over it, they had decided to try reducing the amount of air allowed to mix into the idle fuel by restricting the size of the idle air bleed washer under the choke spring.

They had removed the washer, and Jack was currently at the local hardware store trying to find a slightly smaller fiber washer that would do the job.

Sam suspected that he would also stop at the grocery store to pick up extra snacks and beer for the hockey game they were planning to watch later; and all the things he had forgotten he was out of when they had gone shopping the day before. It made her smile a little – sex, mechanics, steaks for dinner and then they could get to the all-important hockey portion of the day.

Though it was late March, the weather was already warm enough for Sam to get comfortable. She was wearing a tank top - braless - and a lightweight pair of gray sweatpants slung low over her hips and had kicked on an old pair of beat-up Keds.

She was humming quietly as she sat cross legged on the floor and organized the toolbox.

Then the front door bell rang.

It startled her. No one ever rang Jack's doorbell. The delivery people all knew to use the side kitchen door. Everyone else knocked, usually just walked in, and yelled Jack's name.

She considered not going to answer it, but deep-seated fears that it might be a government official or an airman reporting an emergency too vast for even encrypted phones won out over irritation that it might be a salesman or someone trying to sell her a new religion.

When she checked through the garage window she recognized Sara O'Neill immediately, and then she really considered not answering it.

She spent a long time with her hand on the knob of the garage door, hesitating to turn it. Then she turned the deadbolt, pulled it open, and the movement and sound drew Sara's attention away from the front door.

She focused on Sam, processed quickly that it wasn't Jack - she had clearly been bracing herself against seeing him again - then blinked and said, "Oh, hello, Captain….. Carter, yes?"

"Yes, but it's Colonel now," she said, and then quickly amended, "Lt. Colonel."

Sara blinked as if just now realizing how much time had passed. "Oh. Congratulations."

"Thanks. But call me Sam," she said, quickly.

"Sara," Jack's ex-wife responded immediately.

"I remember," Sam answered, and then winced internally because it sounded so lame and they had only met once, but the circumstances had been intensely bizarre, and Sam was just now wondering how much classified info Sara had been given about that. "Jack's not here."

That sounded pretty lame too, so she stepped out of the garage and dug the front door key out of her pants' pocket, opened the front door and went on, "He went out to get some auto parts. He's helping me restore an antique motorcycle."

"I see," Sara said, slowly, and walked into the house behind her.

"His garage is heated," Sam continued, all the while her head was saying _Shut UP, Samantha, you're just making it worse._

Sam was surprised to see Sara hesitate inside the door then remembered that she had never lived here with Jack. Their house had been in Winter Park. This was Jack's house and unfamiliar to her. Sam led her into the living room and gestured to the couch.

"Can I get you something? There's coffee. I just made it," she asked, even though it felt worse than awkward to being playing hostess in Jack's house, and she had to clamp her mouth shut before she started to babble about that.

She got her brain into work mode, got it going fast, the way it did during an attack off world. Her stomach was balling up tight, deep inside, as she fought down a low, quiet panic.

Sam did a quick mental rundown of the house. They had cleaned up after breakfast, and the pair of coffee cups on the counter didn't look odd. She was pretty sure she'd put her soap and shampoo away. She knew she had picked up all her clothes off the floor, and her duffle bag was under the bed, hidden by the bedspread. There was no reason Sara would go to that part of the house; but Sam worried anyway.

The house was immaculate but only because the cleaning service had come in the day before. Jack had wanted everything perfect so Sam wouldn't spend the whole weekend having to pick through his mess.

If Sara had come later when the game was on maybe this wouldn't be quite so awkward, even with the rest of the team absent. It was awkward that Sam was here, without Jack. No getting around it. Weird that she had a key to the front door and they were working on the motorcycle here and not at her house, in her own garage.

_And if she figures it out? _Sam wondered._ Would it matter? Sara and Jack had been divorced for a long time. She'd have no reason to expose them, no reason to ruin both their careers. _

As far as Sam knew, Jack and Sara still liked and cared for one another very much.

Maybe too much.

_God, what if Sara was here because she wanted them to get back together._

The panic in her stomach went from low to high. Sam had no idea at all how Jack felt about his ex-wife. She only knew that Sara had left Jack because Daniel had told her that.

If Sara had not been gone when Jack got back from Abydos would their marriage have survived their son's death? Would Jack have been changed enough by that secret mission to make it work with Sara? He had never been given the chance.

Did she want to give that chance to him now? The thought made Sam's heart throb painfully.

Sara had ignored the couch and then wandered over to the deck doors, surveying the sunlit yard just starting to look like spring. "I'm sorry to interrupt what you were doing," she said. "How long do you think he'll be?"

"Ah, I'm not sure," Sam admitted, "Not long if he just goes to the auto parts place, but he might make other stops since he's out. I could try his cell."

"No, it's not an emergency. I did try calling, but I must have had an old number, and if he has a new one he didn't give it to me." In a softer voice, she said, "He used to do yard work on weekends when he was home. I thought I might catch him in."

Sam nodded because she didn't know what else to do. She had never seen Jack do yard work. They all had the same lawn service, though Jack never allowed them to come when he wasn't home.

"You sure I can't get you a cup of coffee? I just made some."

Sara turned, framed by the sunlight coming in the glass. Sam realized that Sara hadn't changed in the seven years since that she had last seen her. She was still lovely, slim with a wiry resiliency and she had a presence that made her seem taller. Her hair was still wheat blond and she was exuding a strange combination of feminine vulnerability and casual, no-nonsense strength. Her blue eyes were frank and assessing.

_She looks like she belongs with Jack_, Sam thought. Sara looked like a part of Jack's life, the figure in the pictures on the wall come to life, walking and talking and breathing in the living room.

This woman had been Jack's wife, his partner. Why exactly had he kept her picture out all these years?

Something emotional went through Sam, low and deep and impossible to fully understand.

The strangest thing was how she seemed to see the same thoughts mirrored in Sara's eyes.

"That would be nice, actually," Sara said, relenting. "I'd love some coffee. The flight here was awful and I came straight from the hotel."

She followed Sam to the kitchen, and Sam ground her teeth together when she saw the coffee mug she had left on the counter was the one that said Instant Astrophysicist Just Add Coffee that Daniel had given her for Christmas. They had opened presents here at Jack's house, and she had never taken this home.

Two coffee mugs on the counter wasn't odd but one that was clearly hers certainly stood out.

She saw Sara register it and also register the easy way that Sam opened cabinets and got out the sugar bowl and how she got the creamer off the refrigerator door without even looking for it. How she knew the dishes in the dishwasher were clean as she pulled out a fresh mug and handed it to her.

Sara fixed her coffee the way she liked it, and Sam refreshed hers and then without looking up, Sara asked quietly,

"Does he ever talk to you, Sam? Really talk?"

Sam's heart did a slow somersault into her stomach.

_She knows._

And Sam had no idea how to answer that. Outside she could hear Jack's truck pulling into the driveway. She hadn't seen an unfamiliar car out there and assumed Sara had come by taxi from the hotel.

It was the worst question, and Sam wrestled with it for a moment. There was no way to say yes without making it sound like somehow Sara had failed, had never been able to get Jack to talk to her; and she couldn't really say no because that wasn't true. Jack _did_ talk to her. He tried very hard to talk to her having learned from the mistakes of his past; and if everything he needed to talk about was classified that didn't matter with Sam.

None of that was Sara's fault. There was no way to lie to her though. Sara had leaned back against the counter and had both hands around her coffee mug. She was gazing at the floor.

She didn't look like someone Sam wanted to lie to, ever.

"Yes," she said, "Yes, he talks to me."

Sara looked up and smiled a little wistfully.

"Is he happy?"

Her eyes locked with Sara's for a moment – blue on blue and Sam was struck by that again, and she nodded. "As much as he can be, under the current circumstances."

"I'm glad," Sara said, and she sounded sincere, "I was always worried he would be alone but if he has you….."

Her voice trailed off, but her eyes asked the question.

_Does he have you, Sam?_

Sam nodded again, minutely, agreeing and answering all at the same time.

Sam could hear Jack's tailgate dropping, which meant he _had_ stopped for groceries.

Which meant he would be kicking the front door open in a minute, arms full of bags and not going straight to the garage.

She heard his key in the door – locking it because she had left it unlocked and he was going to be mad at her about that, and then turning again. He didn't call her name when he came in. Safety was always first, and he would be wondering why she hadn't locked the door or wasn't in the garage and why she hadn't met him already. She heard the sound of bags being placed on the floor in the hallway because it was easier to pile them all there and then carry them to the kitchen.

"You should go tell him," Sara said. "He shouldn't just walk in and find me."

Sam nodded again and put her coffee down before she rushed out into the hall.

Jack was just straightening from depositing the last bags, pushing the door closed with his foot. His eyes lit with a quiet joy and no small bit of relief at the sight of her. Then he saw the tense look on her face and bit back whatever flip comment he had been about to make about shopping and how much it sucked.

Sam made note of how he turned, subtly, to put his back to the door, giving him a clear view of both sides of the hall and most of the house. His mouth closed grimly. He titled his head and waited.

"What?" he mouthed it more than gave it voice.

"Sara is here," she said, and because they knew more than one person with that name she added, "Your Sara. Your ex-wife."

She saw the emotional flinch in his eyes and the way the muscles in his back and shoulders tensed. She held his eyes for a moment.

Then Sara had stepped into the door way behind her, and Sam moved out of the way, and Jack's eyes left Sam and turned to Sara.

Sam reached down and grabbed the plastic bags that seemed to have the cold stuff and took them to the kitchen.

She could hear their quiet voices but didn't want to listen, so she concentrated on putting away butter and beer and mayonnaise and the mint chocolate chip ice cream she had asked for.

If Sara hadn't figured out about her and Jack, the ice cream would have given it away. Jack hated the stuff.

Jack came into the kitchen with the rest of the bags and put them on the counter.

"We're going to take a walk," he said.

Sam was startled, "No, I can just go back to my place…."

"How?" Jack asked, "The Indian is still in pieces. Here." He dug in his pocket and came up with a small bag. "This is the washer. Go install it and see if the damned thing will hot start, and if it doesn't we'll do something else. Sara and I can take a walk, and she can tell me whatever the hell it is she needs to say in private. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, reluctantly, then, "Jack? She knows. About us. I didn't say anything. She guessed all on her own."

Jack considered that for a moment.

"She always was smart, observant," he said. He raked his hand through his spiky hair and sighed, "What the hell do I say to her, Sam?"

"Maybe this time you just need to listen," Sam suggested.

She crossed the room, caught the back of his neck in her hand and wrapped her arm around his waist. "I love you, Jack," she said, and she pulled him down for a brief, searing kiss, pushing his mouth open, a slide of hot tongue and press of lips.

It was possession. It was claiming, because she was still more than a little afraid that Sara was here because she wanted them back together.

It was stunning, and it knocked the wind out of him.

"I know," he said, when she finally freed him, "I love you too."

Sam smiled and tried to get her voice to sound light and casual, though her heart was aching. "So go, and I'll have the Indian roaring like a tiger when you get back."

She turned him around and gave him a push in the center of his back, because he looked like he would rather 'gate unarmed into a Jaffa ambush than go back out there with his ex-wife.

He turned and gave her one more pained look.

"Go," she said.

"You'll be here when I get back?" he asked, and the vulnerability doubled her heart ache.

"Not going anywhere," she promised.

(0)


	66. Chapter 66

The taxi pulled up at the curb about five minutes before Sara and Jack appeared from around the corner. Sam watched them through the window. They paused by the cab, talked for a few minutes and shared a rather chaste looking kiss on the cheek that could mean anything. Jack opened the back door, closed it, hit the roof with his palm and stood with his hands in the pockets of his jeans for a moment watching it drive off.

She'd spent the entire time he'd been gone in an agony of self-doubt and racing thoughts. What would happen when he got back? What if he and Sara right now were standing in each other's arms, remembering their shared past and talking about trying to make it work again? Jack was leaving for D.C. soon and Sam couldn't go with him but Sara….. Sam realized she had no idea what Sara O'Neill was doing now. Could she rearrange her life and follow Jack to D.C? Set up housekeeping in a nice little condo near the Mall, far away from the pain and tragedy that had separated them in the first place?

Daniel might know more about Sara than any of them. Sam had told Sara that Jack talked to her and it was true but Sam still suspected that he talked to Daniel more than he did to any of them. She'd had to fight the urge to run to the phone and call Daniel and pester him with questions that would only have the poor man scratching his head and wanting to know what the hell was going on.

She'd told herself firmly to get a grip. Jack loved her. He'd proved that again this morning.

Hadn't he?

She'd waited for him with her heart alternately eager for his return and dreading it.

She stood frozen, watching him. As he started back towards the house, Sam straddled the bike, sat down and started the Indian.

It fired up with a satisfying roar and settled into a comfortable growl. The sound almost muffled the noise of the garage door opening and Jack stepping in.

Sam looked up and schooled her features to neutrality with some effort. His face was equally blank.

"Sounds great," he said, over the noise of the bike. "What happens when you shut it off and try to restart it?"

Sam shrugged but reached down and killed the engine. They stared at each other for a moment and then turned it over again.

It started instantly and this time when she looked up, she smiled.

Jack made a sound between a laugh and a snort and made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

"What?" she asked.

"I've watched you bend alien technology to your will with only Daniel helping you translate a few lines of techno-babble and you're all happy we fixed the Indian with a new washer," he said.

"It's my motorcycle," she said, as if that explained her happiness.

Jack continued to regard her for a moment and then said, "Let's take a ride."

"On this?" she asked, startled, because all the work they had done to sneak her in here was going to be pretty quickly undone if they roared out of the garage on her bike.

"Yep," he said.

Sam felt her stomach drop. Why did he want to get away from the house? They had plans to grill steaks and then curl up on the couch and watch the game.

"Okay," she said, "I'll have to change."

She was glad suddenly that she'd brought the leathers she liked to ride in, though she had planned to be riding home on Monday morning in them.

She went into the house, got her duffle bag from under the bed and donned the black leather pants, vest and jacket that had caused Daniel to whistle and nickname her 'Biker Chick Barbie.'

Which had made her confess to him that her first pilot call sign was 'Air Force Barbie'.

She wondered if Jack knew that and decided he did. There wasn't anything Jack couldn't find out if he really wanted the information.

Jack didn't exactly whistle when she walked back into the garage but she didn't miss the way his jaw went slack and his lips parted and his eyes went hooded and dark. He had gotten both helmets off the front seat of the truck and nearly dropped both of them.

Sam felt a surge of deep satisfaction.

_Go ahead, O'Neill. Break up with this. At least you'll know what you're walking away from._

Out loud she said, "I told you I needed to change."

"I thought you meant… you know…. _Jeans_," Jack answered, sounding a little strangled.

Sam managed a smile that was far saucier and more confident than she was feeling.

She straddled the bike again as she put on the helmet, toed the kickstand and turned it around while he opened the garage door. She walked it out into the driveway and started it up while he shut and locked the house.

Then he was behind her and around her, all around her and Sam couldn't help the surge of hot desire that fired her body as she gunned the engine and took off out the driveway.

They hadn't talked about a direction or a destination so for a while she just drove, avoiding the highway, taking the side roads out of town and starting to climb up into the lower foothills. When she made the turn onto a twisty mountain road she heard Jack's voice in his ear – her name made into a question, not a demand or an order. Not a warning.

She ignored him.

She knew they were both adrenaline junkies and because of that she took the road maybe a little too fast, confident of her abilities and sure of her equipment. It was just enough to make Jack keep his hands on her hips. Just enough to make him grip tighter and then relax as the bike eased around curves on a precarious edge. She loved the way he leaned with her, settled his weight in perfect synch with hers as she moved and dipped the bike into the corners.

It was a lot like sex.

She slowed and took them off the road at a scenic overlook, killed the engine and sat back.

He was off the bike before she was, standing, taking off his helmet. There was silence after the roar of the bike and she took her helmet off and fluffed her hair.

"And we're here because?" he asked.

Sam shrugged and dismounted. "It's a good place to talk."

There was no one else at the overlook. They followed a winding gravel path through a stand of aspens out into the clearing that let them see the valley below. Water gurgled somewhere nearby. Flowers and shrubs struggled to come back from winter. Sam and Jack perched on the rough stone wall, braced on one leg, helmets on the ground by their feet and regarded one another.

Afternoon sun turned Jack's hair to glistening silver and highlighted the sharp, masculine planes of his face though his gaze was lost in shadows. He had his hands on his legs, his fingers tense, his hands beautifully shaped. Sam was suddenly seized with a kind of hysterical longing to undo his past, to undo everything horrible that had ever happened to him and spin his life back into something sane and normal.

Even if it meant losing him.

Jack stared at her for several more moments and then said, in that ridiculously off handed way that he frequently said the most important things,

"Sara came to tell me she's getting married again. She had to come to the Springs for a business convention and thought she would tell me in person."

The vista below blurred as tears of relief rose in Sam's eyes. She fought them, not entirely certain that was the end of the story.

"And you said?"

Jack lifted his chin. "I said I was happy for her! _Jeezus,_ Carter, what do you _think _I said?"

When she didn't answer, but just stared back at him biting her lip with tears still clinging to her eyes he inhaled sharply.

"You thought I wanted to get back together with her?"

Sam nodded, mutely.

"Sam!"

"Well I wasn't sure! You never – and I mean _never_ – talk about her and all I know is that she left you and how am I supposed to be sure that you haven't always wanted her back? I mean, if you look at us, we're almost identical. I could be her sister! How am I supposed to be sure that you aren't just trying to replace her with a younger, more accessible version and you've still got pictures of her all over the place. Who do you see when you look at me, Jack? Sara or Sam?"

He moved so fast she never saw it. One moment he was several feet from her and the next he was beside her, hauling her roughly into his arms and sealing his mouth over hers.

Sam didn't resist. She couldn't. She kissed him with reckless abandon and Jack kissed back as if he was trying to absorb her into his soul. His hands fell to her waist and he pressed forward, bending her backwards so that she was forced to put her hands on his shoulders and cling to his strength.

He broke away finally and stared down into her eyes with an expression of exasperation and pure, unadulterated adoration.

"_Jeezus,_ Sam," he said again. "I thought you told me you _hate _those romance novels where they use miscommunication as a plot device."

"It's not miscommunication if you just don't talk about it at all, ever," she countered. "I respect your privacy, Jack. I really do. But…."

"This affects you too," he finished.

"Yes."

"So?"

"So _talk_."

He let go of her a little but wrapped his hand firmly around hers and settled back. He lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug.

"I have thing for tall hot blonds," he said, "always have, which has everything to do with my attraction to you and to Sara and nothing at all to do with looking for a replacement for her. You gotta believe that."

Sam nodded. Jack frowned, hesitated, inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again.

"I suck at this, Carter," he said, finally, "Look….The truth is I'd have fallen in love with you no matter what you look like – with everything you've done and everything amazing thing you've accomplished and your strength and your will and if you're a lot like Sara then it's because that's the kind of woman I fall in love with. That's what I want to come home to."

"Really?"

He made a frustrated noise and rolled his eyes.

"You finally get me talking to you and you think I'd waste that lying to you?"

"No! But I heard you say once that you and Sara were great together."

"Were, past tense. You and I _are _great together and we will _be_ great together."

"When did you become the word guy?"

"Just don't out me to Daniel. When did you become so insecure?"

"I don't know. It's just… it's like every time you say you love me the sky opens up and I get a little glimpse of heaven and I'm always afraid something is going to take that away."

"No one is going to take it away," Jack said, sounding a little frustrated.

"I'm sorry," she said, quickly, misunderstanding his frustration.

"For _What?" _he demanded, "I'm the one who screwed up!"

"What? How?"

"You should never have worried about any of this. I should have made you aware every minute of every day how much you mean to me, from the moment I almost broke your door down."

"You do!"

"Clearly I don't."

"Maybe I should just agree with you and tell you to work harder at it," she said.

"You would if you were smart and I know you're pretty damn smart."

They fell silent again and stared at each other until Sam couldn't help the smile tugging at her mouth.

"No more doubts?" he asked.

She shook her head. "None."

The relief on his face was evident. He leaned forward, rested his forehead on hers and rubbed strong fingers into the back of her neck.

"Good. You were right, by the way."

"About?"

"Sara. She does know about us and she's glad, she's relieved actually I think."

"Relieved how?"

Jack paused, took a breath, "It's like….," he stopped, hitting an emotional and verbal wall for a time and then, "_Christ, _Sam, I _suck_ at this…She still thought she needed to take care of me, like I might need her again someday and she had to be there."

"Isn't that what you thought, too? Isn't that the reason for the pictures? It's a way of still being connected to someone who kept you grounded. Haven't you always believed that if you really ever called her she'd come in a heartbeat?"

Jack didn't answer, which was all the answer she needed.

"Does the Air Force still have her contact information if something happens to you?"

This time, Jack nodded, looking unhappy. But he said, defensively, "I had to give someone and frankly, if something happens to me, chances are you'll be with me."

"She left you, Jack. You came back and she was gone," Sam said, bluntly.

The flash of pain in his eyes shocked her. Whatever she had just said had cut him deeply. He shook his head slowly, miserably.

"No, she didn't," he said, softly. He took a breath that looked like he was trying to breathe fire. "I walked out on her when I took that mission. She knew it. I knew it. It was for the best. That way she got all I had left to give her – the pension, survivor benefits, everything I owned. I came back and found out she never wanted it. Sam, look…. I'm going to tell you something no one else knows. Okay?"

He looked up and found that she was staring straight at him. She had never stopped looking straight at him.

"Only if you want to," she said.

"I think I have to," he said, "That year after Abydos, when I was retired, Sara and I tried to get back together. We tried off and on. It never worked. We just couldn't do it. You're right though – there was still this odd connection, like we were still each other's fallback. Now she's moving on and I think she can do it without worrying about me."

Sam reached out and put her hand on his knee.

"Because she knows you have me?"

"Do I?"

"Now who has doubts?" she countered, "Yes you do."

His face lit up a little and smiled - a genuine Jack smile, the kind he hid from everyone else. It was a tender closed-mouth curve of lips that softened his hard eyes and chased the weariness from his face and made him heart wrenchingly handsome. "For real? For keeps?"

Sam shook her head, bit down her smile. It was so juvenile, so adolescent, that she almost laughed aloud. In two simple, almost schoolboy words, Jack had clearly articulated what he wanted. He so did_ not _suck at this sometimes. It was _wonderful._

"For keeps," she said.

Jack reached out and cradled the side of her face against the palm of his hand.

"Good. Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

He sat back and his hot, dark eyes swept her from head to toe and back up.

""Lord have mercy, woman, how did you get those pants _on?"_

Now Sam laughed. She couldn't help it. It was a rich cleansing laugh.

"You like them?"

"Oh yes," he said, sincerely, "and thank you _so _much for the totally unnecessary hard-on I had all the way up here."

Her gaze dropped to the crotch of his jeans for an instant. Jack shifted, gripped a fold of fabric against his inner thigh and tugged it down. Sam's laughter turned into a mischievous grin.

"All the way here? Wow."

"You should be impressed! Do you really have any idea how old I am? After this morning I shouldn't be hard again for a week."

"You never did act your age," she observed.

Jack shook his head and looked a little awed.

"It's all you. Nothing else does this to me. Nothing and no one. Take the compliment."

Sam stood up and reached down for her helmet.

"Come on," she said, "Let's go home and make those steaks and watch the game."

He stood up, more slowly.

"And after that?" He asked, falling in beside her and slipping his arm around her waist. He hugged her hard, nuzzled his face into her hair and inhaled.

Sam leaned hard up against him.

"I'll show you how I get these pants _off," _she promised.

(0)


	67. Chapter 67

**So why not whump the whole team one more time before Jack leaves for DC? I couldn't think of a good reason not to.**

**(0)**

It was one of those times that Jack wondered exactly why he missed going off world. Even the last time, when they were supposed to just sign a treaty and have a great time, had resulted in nearly being crushed under the weight of a collapsing temple and then a 302 dog fight against rebel insurgents.

The MALP telemetry had shown a Stargate surrounded by Asian statuary and bamboo decks. It appeared to be sitting in some kind of marshland. There were no obvious signs of people around the Gate at all and the place had an air of mold and decay. But Daniel had been convinced they would find more about the Lost City, if not the Lost City itself. Jack hadn't been able to argue with the evidence and he'd given up trying to tell Daniel that _it doesn't __feel__ right_. It had taken Jack years to understand that Daniel didn't follow hunches. Daniel just followed evidence along paths that most people missed. Jack had given the go-ahead and decided to go with them. It was mostly because he hadn't had five minutes alone with Carter in two weeks and he was leaving soon.

It was also because something about the image being sent back by the MALP sent the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He'd ordered full combat gear and gotten that stubborn, frustrated look from Daniel

The first few minutes had gone pretty much as expected. Daniel was moving from statue to statue, reading inscriptions on the pedestals and absorbing the writing as if he could download it instantly for replay later, which no doubt he could. Sam and Teal'c were moving around the edges of the slippery, rotting decks, weapons alert and watching for any signs of movement. So far the only movement had been from some grim looking reptiles whose snouts had risen out of the water just high enough to give SG1 the once over as potential meals. They had sunk back down, 'gator like, but Jack knew they were still lurking just below the surface. Snakes slithered through the murky water and heavy marsh grass. It was one of the least hospitable places Jack had been in his life.

Jack stayed basically on their six, shadowing Daniel, gauging the distance they had already traveled from the Stargate and estimating how much time it would take to make it back if things went south.

Of course things went south all at the same time. The section of deck holding Daniel and Jack splintered and started to crack. Daniel was pitched forward, slamming his head against the statue in front of him. Jack surged forward to grab him just as more of the deck gave way. It left him with an ankle he wasn't willing to admit he had sprained if not broken, hauling Daniel backwards as the statue slid into the murky swamp ten feet below.

He heard Sam's scream as he landed on his butt with Daniel on top of him. He twisted out from under Daniel and rolled onto his side, bringing his weapon up. But Sam had only fallen through another crumbling section of deck. She was clinging to it with both hands, slipping, but Teal'c got to her in time. He pulled her up onto a more solid section of deck but even from where Jack was he could see that the splintered bamboo had slashed her leg to the bone from mid-thigh to calf. Blood poured, stained the deck.

"Carter!" Jack hollered.

At the same moment Teal'c straightened up with battle alertness written in every muscle of his body.

"O'Neill!" He said.

Jack stood – and oh, yeah, the ankle was probably broken – and looked in the direction Teal'c was facing.

They had incoming aircraft.

"What the hell is that?" He shouted at Teal'c. The Jaffa's eyes always seemed to be at least as sharp as his ears.

"Planes, with some kind of personnel carrying gondolas underneath."

Jack cursed to himself. He had let them get too far from the Gate. It looked much too small.

"Maybe they're coming to render aid, "Daniel said, reading Jack's mind. He was sitting up, gingerly touching the bleeding the wound on his head. The right arm of his glasses was bent. "You shouldn't assume they're going to attack."

That was when the aircraft opened fire. The first strike took Teal'c in the shoulder. The second exploded into the deck beside Jack, knocking him flat again. He saw Teal'c go down. But the Jaffa just got that grim look on his face that meant he was seriously pissed off. Teal'c grabbed hold of Carter and dragged her with him behind a huge statue of a crouched, snarling Chinese lion. It would provide them decent cover – unless it was also booby-trapped, which Jack was seriously convinced was what had just happened on the deck.

A next strike, closer now, hit Teal'c in the leg and sent Jack and Daniel scrambling for cover behind another statue. The Jaffa let out a howl that was more outrage than pain.

"Oh they are soooo attacking," Jack said, unnecessarily.

He looked at Daniel and saw the same frustration that was always there in Daniel's eyes when peace didn't seem like an option.

"You're the only one who can make the DHD with any kind of speed," Jack said.

Daniel nodded, winced as he got groggily to his feet and started running. Jack almost called him back. If the deck under the DHD was rigged, Daniel would go tumbling into the predator infested waters below. He bit back the order. Daniel was the only one who could this and it had to be done.

Teal'c had his staff weapon up, kneeling somehow on his wounded leg and shooting with the arm attached to his wounded shoulder. Sam had her zat out, positioned around the side of the statue and firing as best she could at targets that kept zig-zagging across the blue sky. The zat had superior range to her P90 but it was a bitch to aim. Jack also suspected she couldn't handle the P90 with the blood pouring out of her leg that way. She had to be in considerable pain and running on adrenaline. But even severely wounded with an unreliable weapon, Sam's marksmanship was a thing of beauty. Enemy airmen were tumbling out of the low-hanging gondolas with comforting regularity.

Gritting his teeth against the grief he knew his ankle was going to give him, Jack got to his feet, hunched over and made his way to Teal'c and Sam amid the weapons fire. He had no ideas what kind of fuel the ships were running on and in spite of the random patterns they were flying, they appeared to be hard to maneuver. No doubt their aerodynamics was being compromised by the heavy gondolas hanging below them. It was from those gondolas that the weapons' fire was coming. The planes had arranged themselves in a high-low pattern. Sam was taking out the low flying ones. Teal'c had taken the higher ones. Their unspoken teamwork was also a thing of beauty.

Jack slid in beside Sam and fired his zat over her head a few times.

"How you doin'?" He asked.

"Getting dizzy," she admitted as another one of the incoming enemy dropped backwards out of sight, the victim of her zat blast.

Jack put his zat down and stripped off his belt. Sam let out one sharp gasp of pain as he wrapped it around her leg. She grabbed his forearm as he pulled, eyes closed and all the color in her face gone.

"O'Neill," Teal'c growled suddenly.

But Jack has seen it at the same time. There was another ship coming in but this gondola held only one airman. The rest of the gondola was taken up with a staff canon the size of which they had never seen.

So now they had confirmation that the Goa'uld had indeed settled this planet. Whether they were here now or not was irrelevant. The lethal weapon was pointed straight at the Stargate and if it went off it when the wormhole was active it would take out the Gate Room and half the mountain.

Jack twisted around to look at Daniel. He had made it to the DHD and was hunkered down, alternately ducking out from under it to dial or use his zat while the Gate whirled and the chevrons locked.

He had three chevrons lit up.

"Sir," Sam said and there was a whole world of meaning and fear in that single syllable.

"_Daniel," _Jack shouted_, "Do NOT dial Earth!"_

Daniel looked up and shouted something back that Jack couldn't hear over the distance and noise of battle.

Swearing, Jack reached for his radio.

"Daniel! Do _not_ dial Earth! Do you copy? Over?"

"_Copy that. There are three chevrons locked! I can't exactly hang up! What is it you suggest I do here, Jack" _Daniel's voice snapped back at him.

"Dial something else! Some place deserted. Over."

"_That just happens to have the same three first chevrons? Jack!"_

"You've got a photographic memory! You remember ever fact you ever knew," Jack snapped back, thinking _and my name in your most bitchy voice isn't a substitute for 'over', _"Now dial someplace else or I'll come over there and shoot you myself! _Over."_

He saw Daniel kneel up again, his hand hovering over the DHD and concentration written on his face. Even from this distance Jack could see the blood streaking his forehead and cheek.

Sam has sunk back against him though she was still shooting – straight up now as the planes made a passing run over their heads.

"They're coming around," Teal'c said, unnecessarily.

They started scrambling backwards in the direction of the Gate. Sam let out a cry of pain that that cut Jack to the heart. His ankle shrieked at him. Teal'c's complexion was turning an unhealthy shade of gray.

Leaning on Jack and taking the moment to rest while their enemies came about for another pass at them, Sam reached for her radio.

"Daniel! Dial PK5-998. Over," she said.

There was a pause.

"That's going to seriously suck, Sam. Over."

_Oh NOW you remember radio protocol_, Jack thought sourly. _Fuck you, Daniel. _

"We won't have too stay long," Sam answered. Her hand was shaking as she held the radio to speak into it. "It's more survivable than here and there isn't another choice. Over."

"Copy that. Over," Daniel answered.

"Out," Sam said.

"Let's move. Make for the DHD." Jack said. Under his words he could hear the high pitched whine of the canon beginning to energize.

They moved in a crouch with Jack and Sam holding each other up and Teal'c shoulder to shoulder with Jack. They made it to the deck in front of the Gate and laid down flat on the platform. They'd practiced that. They knew exactly how low they had to be to survive the wave when it boiled out of the opening. Daniel kept dialing. When he finally pushed the red button in the center he threw himself down beside Teal'c and closed his eyes.

The wormhole erupted and, _damn,_ it was loud when it was right overhead. It seemed to take forever to stabilize, as if they were in a kind of horrible dream in which the oncoming canon moved in real time and the Gate moved in some stagnant slow motion. When it finally settled down, Jack yelled, "Go! Go! Stay low!"

In spite of their injuries and having to crouch, they moved fast. Jack's ankle gave a sharp twist of pain that sent him to his knees. He felt Daniel's hand under his arm, hauling him up. Jack pushed Sam through the puddle with a hand in the middle of her back, ignoring her cry of pain. Beside them Teal'c staggered – _staggered! – _over the threshold and disappeared.

A streaking red ball of energy flashed over their heads through the wormhole as Daniel and Jack tumbled through. They half dove, half dragged each other through the puddle and landed on a stone platform on a planet half a galaxy away. In the distance there was a blinding flash of red light that lit up the already fiery sky and then vanished.

Behind them the wormhole snapped shut.

Jack rolled over and found Sam, gathering her into his arms.

"You sure are an exciting date, sir," she said, quietly.

"That dinner and a movie thing is so over rated," he answered with his arms tightening around her and his lips against her forehead. She was breathing hard, each breath sounding a little more pain-filled than the last.

No one from Earth had ever set foot on PK5-988. At one point it may have been a pleasant place. Now it was a land of volcanic activity and red, smoke-filled skies. It was hard to breath, and the gravity made it almost impossible to move. But the air _was_ breathable and there had been nothing for that blast to hit. Sitting up, they found the MALP they had abandoned here months before waiting for them like an obedient dog.

Still having to clinging to each other, they stood up.

"Who's dialing home?" Jack asked.

"I will," Sam, Teal'c and Daniel all said at the same time.

They huffed out a team laugh. Even Teal'c grunted.

"I think I'm the only one who can walk," Daniel said. He got up, still shaky, with his forehead still dripping blood.

The rest of them crawled off to the side of the platform and _damn_ if the whoosh of the vortex wasn't just as loud this time as it had been on the swamp planet. Jack gathered his team.

"Let's go home," he said.

(0)


	68. Chapter 68

It felt odd, Sam thought as she put more old magazines in the box on the floor. It should have been a team thing, helping Jack go through the house and box up the things he wanted to give to charity and the things he wanted to put in storage before the movers from the military came to start packing things up for the move to DC.

But Daniel had called and offered a few odd excuses; and Teal'c had gone back to the SGC and then called to say he was needed on Dakara.

Sam couldn't shake the feeling they had done it on purpose to give her time alone with Jack.

She loved them both for that.

After the disaster of their last mission Jack had insisted they all stay at his place to recover, except for Daniel who went home to Jillian. Teal'c would probably have refused except that he knew how much Sam really wanted to spend time with Jack and he also knew they needed him as a buffer still. The three of them had lived at Jack's house for the last three weeks, recovering, helping O'Neill pack, with Daniel occasionally stopping by to pitch in. In those rare times they'd had nothing but each other and the rest of their complicated lives faded into the background. Sam knew those times were about to disappear forever.

The deep cut on her leg was nearly healed though it was going to leave a nasty scar on her upper thigh. Jack claimed this was sexy but she wasn't so sure. He was still in a walking cast and would be for another three weeks at least. Teal'c and Daniel were both healed already.

It might look odd for her to stay at Jack's for another day or two, but watching the things in this house – the minutia of Jack's life – disappear into box and then out to the back of his truck made Sam want to stay with him for as long as possible.

It had seemed perfectly doable when they had finally discussed it. When she had calmed down from being excluded from his decision-making process they had spent a night huddled shoulder-to-shoulder on his rooftop deck and talked.

They agreed on a year in DC, two tops. Just long enough for him to train someone to take his place and figure what the hell they wanted to do with Atlantis and then he would join her in Nevada.

As it loomed closer, Sam couldn't shake the sinking feeling that they had missed something in their careful calculations. She had spent nearly every day for eight years in Jack's presence. She had no idea how she was supposed to spend a year in a long distance clandestine relationship.

They were a long, long way from happily ever after.

She couldn't bear the idea of Jack selling this house, of someone else living in it. She understood in her scientific mind that a house was just a temporary place. She was a military brat. Eight years in one place was already a long time. But it was hard to walk around this house now and not fantasize about all the things she had hoped could happen here and never would. The real memories were richer, like a full-bodied wine. She stood in the doorway of the bedroom and looked at the bed, remembering all the things that had happened – and all the things that hadn't.

She almost jumped when Jack's hands landed on her shoulders. He had never lost the stealth that Special Forces had taught him. He had never tolerated a squeaky door or creaky floorboard. Even in a walking cast he was a silent as a cat when he moved.

His lips landed on the side of her neck before she could chide him in an attempt to distract him from the glib comment she expected about being able to sneak up on her.

"You want to order take-out?" He asked.

"Nothing in the house we can cook?"

She turned as his arms fell around her in a loose hold. She reached up to touch his face and then cup the back his neck and pull him downward. Even with DC and Groom Lake looming in the future, right now it was nice not to have to be Colonel Carter, astrophysical genius, command prodigy, periodic destroyer of suns.

Just Sam, standing in Jack's arms and moments from a blissful kiss.

Jack's nose slides against hers and Sam felt the way he was smiling as he pulled her flush against him. They closed the last millimeter that was separating them and kissed. It was gentle, almost exploratory. This was all still new, the taste and feel of each of each other. They were still learning. Sam opened her mouth and reveled for the moment in the touch of her tongue to his and delighted in the simple action. He wrapped her in a tight hug. She broke the kiss on a laugh as his hand slid down her back and cupped the curve of her bottom to press them together even tightly.

Jack rested his cheek on the top of her head. He was rocking a little, side to side, as if the motion could somehow meld them together. He would never say he was going to miss her. But he didn't need to. She could feel the sentiment every time they touched. She had timed it recently. Jack couldn't be in the same room with her for five minutes before he had to touch, to get a hand on her somehow, brush his body to hers, press fleeting lips on her hair. Anything to make contact. It was like trying to make up for eight years of lost opportunity.

They stood like that for a moment until he let go and took her hand.

"Come here," he said and led her into the room and over to the closet.

"What?"

"I have something for you."

"In the closet?"

Jack didn't answer, he just rummaged around in the far left corner until he pulled out the jacket of his first set of dress blues.

"Your jacket?"

"I want you to have it," he said. His voice was bordering on gruff. "Keep it with you."

Sam hesitated and Jack twisted the hangar one-handed to hold it out to her a little awkwardly.

Sam reached for it and let the fabric slide through her hands for a moment. It was soft, wool on the outside and shimmering silk on the inside, rustling a little as it moved.

A piece of his past that he had somehow managed to keep all these years.

"Jack, I…. really…. I….." She stammered. She wanted to hug it, bury her face in it. The need to put it on was almost overwhelming.

He took it back from her and swung it wound her shoulders, pulling the front together and pulling her towards him at the same time. It was a double embrace.

"Why?" She asked.

"Because it's something I can give you that's safe. Only you will know it's mine. It could be your Dad's. No one will know or care and if you….. if you want to…. If you need, you know, a hug…"

"_Jack,"_ Sam's voice broke.

The jacket was already warming to her body heat. He was right. It felt just like his arms around her.

"I don't want to let you go," Jack said in a tight, husky voice.

"So now you won't have to," she answered lightly. Jack was so rarely like this that it scared her a little when he was. She still wasn't quite sure what to do. "I'll have this. I'll wear this."

Wear Jack's love and protectiveness. Jack's history and his memories wrapped around her whenever she needed them. She smiled at him in a kind of awed wonder.

"Thank you," she whispered, touching her lips gently to his.

"It isn't enough," Jack sounded as if he was dragging the words from the far side of the galaxy, "It should be more… it should be…."

_A ring….._

The word hung unspoken between them.

"This is enough," she assured him.

"For now," he said, quickly. "It's just for now. You know, for this little while, until we can…"

"I know," she nodded, needing him to believe.

"I love you," he said when he ran out of other words.

"I know that too," she said. She slipped her arms into the sleeves of the jacket and then put her arms around his neck. Standing on tiptoe she kissed him. "I do, Jack." She kissed him again, pressed her cheek to his and whispered in his ear. "I do."

(0)


	69. Chapter 69

**This section takes place several months before the episode Beachhead.**

**(0)**

"You got the report?" Sam asked. She was feeling unusually anxious about this.

There was a hesitation but she could feel Jack on the other end. If she concentrated she could hear him breathing.

"Yes."

Sam winced. He didn't sound at all happy. She took a deep breath.

"Sir–"

"Where are you?"

"Inside Area 51. You know that."

"Where inside?"

"My lab. Why?"

"Hang up the phone."

"Sir?"

"Hang up the phone, Colonel."

"Yes, sir."

But there was already a click on the other end. Puzzled and not liking it at all, Sam lowered the phone back into its cradle. A moment later there was a blinding flash of light and she was standing in the Pentagon office of Major General Jack O'Neill.

Jack was coming in the doorway, holding the door half-closed so that no one could see into the room. He was talking to someone out of Sam's visual range.

"If Anderson looks like he's going to drag his ass about it then kick it up to –" He paused, hesitated to look over his shoulder at Sam and motion her to silence.

Since she was gaping at him in something like shock it was unlikely she was going to make a sound.

"To who, sir?" It had to be Jack's aide, sounding contrite, not prompting, as if the general had kept talking as he entered his office and the aide had just failed to catch the end of the sentence.

"To _whom_," Jack corrected and Sam gave a short, soft laugh. Daniel would be so proud of him. Jack hushed her with another wave of his hand.

"Yes, sir. That's what I asked. You said kick it up to...?"

"Connors, in acquisitions," Jack continued, "and stay on him until he does it. Now hold all my calls and I am DND until I open this door again. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Jack shut the door and turned to face her.

"Sir," Sam managed to choke out.

"Say what you want," Jack interrupted.

Sam arched an eyebrow. "Asgard anti-surveillance?" It was a guess, but the look on his face confirmed it.

"The best they can give me," Jack said, with a cheerful nonchalance.

"So we could have had this conversation over the phone?"

"No," Jack moved then, started walking towards her. He usually had his hands on her somehow within five minutes "Well my end of it, yes. There's no Asgard technology in your lab at Area 51."

"Something you could remedy," Sam observed.

"No," Jack said.

"Why?"

He was nearly on top of her at that point.

"Because then I couldn't do this," he answered, making a gesture with his hand that indicated her presence in his office.

"Have the Prometheus beam me to DC?"

"The Prometheus wasn't involved."

"Then how?"

Jack produced a small grey disc from his pocket and grinned at her.

"You had an Asgard beam installed in here?"

"No, actually it's in a rarely-used storage closet down the hall."

"What?"

"It makes it less noticeable."

"And you learned how to use it?"

"You don't have to sound so shocked," he said, feigning hurt. "I did hook up my own TV, cable and internet. I know how to connect to certain locator beacons. Yours is one of them."

"Convenient," Sam said. "What else do you know how to do?"

Jack reached out, slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her hard up against him.

"This," he said.

There was another flash of light, another moment of disorientation and then they materialized inside the living room of a house Sam didn't recognize. She clung to Jack for a moment.

"Where are we?"

"Safe house. I'd rather not say where."

Sam got her feet under her and stepped back a little. But she didn't let go. She had been without him for too long. It had only been two weeks. Two weeks that Jack had already suffered through with clenched teeth, and she had spent working herself to exhaustion in an attempt to sleep at night without him. How were they supposed to last a year?

Sam knew that Jack had been unable to go on, ordering the people he loved into danger, watching them leave and never knowing for sure that he would see them again. She wasn't sure how or why but somehow Homeworld Security–with its politicking, infighting, and budget meetings–was proving a better fit. He wasn't ready to give up control. He had plans for the future of the Stargate program that he could only accomplish in DC. So he was gritting his teeth and trying not to kill anyone.

She had taken the job in Groom Lake mostly because control over every piece of alien technology that came through the Gate was just too much of a temptation. All the stuff she had been forced to hand off to Felger and Lee, all the stuff that she had carefully packed and seen shipped to Area 51 – all hers now.

She had also taken it to be closer to Cassie. But she was finding the isolated nature of the base to be daunting. Getting home on any kind of a regular basis had proven fruitless.

And there was the whole missing-Jack-as-if-she-had-lost-a-limb feeling to deal with.

"Are we on Earth?" Sam asked.

The look on his face was completely inscrutable.

"You're not going to tell me are you?"

"Just know that we can talk here," Jack said, "and we can do this."

He pulled her close again and bent her backwards a little. He gazed down into her eyes and the expression on his face was the one that said so clearly '_come and be mine.'_ It turned Sam inside out, somersaulted her world. It melted any shred of resistance or irritation and she was leaning into him with helpless abandon as his mouth came down on hers.

Sweet, sweet and hot, and they responded like the starved lovers they were. Sam didn't care now about how audaciously he had kidnapped her. She didn't want to think about the things in the report or the necessity of talking about those things; or how impossible it was going to be to talk about them with a post-lovemaking Jack. She was never as surprised by her reaction to Jack as she was by how much he wanted her. They had both sailed down the river of denial for so long, it seemed. The kiss was not gentle. They paused and breathed on each other and the kiss became two, then three. Building. Intensifying.

Sam pushed in so close that if they got any closer Jack would be inside her nondescript beige jumpsuit with her.

"This place have a bed?"

"I created it for us. What do you think?" It was a husky murmur against the skin on her throat, soft nips, his tongue teasing.

"Mmmmhmmm," was the only answer she could manage.

She was smoldering by this time. He guided her through one of the doors into a bedroom so generic it might have been any three-star hotel anywhere on Earth. But it had a bed – a king-size, she judged, from the brief look she gave it as Jack was dragging her out of the jumpsuit and her shoes and the functional underclothing supplied by Area 51. He didn't stop touching and caressing and kissing even as he shed his own clothing.

Jack barely had to touch and she was burning, wanting. Sam pushed up against him as he kissed and explored. She was going to have to stop thinking. She pressed into his kiss as if she wanted to drown there. Jack as always, had to explore every bit of her with his hands, his fingers, his mouth when she finally released him from the kiss. She was so ready for him it was starting to ache. But he was deliberately avoiding any touch that would send her over the edge. In a way she was glad, she wanted more than just his hands. Her body moved restlessly. Her hands flailed over him without aim or purpose, not even to touch; more as if she needed an anchor. Her fingers carded into his hair.

"_Jack." _It was a breathless urge. Her hand finally came to rest on his shaft, so hard but the skin over it so soft – softer than anything else on his body. Jack inhaled sharply. She smiled a little. "Good?"

He dropped his head to her shoulder and nodded. She stroked up, pulled up and down and felt him losing control. He let her do it for a long time, groaning, thrusting his hips forward and back. Then abruptly he moved away, turning her over on her side urgently and pressed his chest up against her back, spooning them together.

There wasn't much she could do in that position, lying on her side with her back pressed into his chest, but Jack didn't seem to care at this point. He kissed the place where her neck became her shoulder, nuzzling his face into her skin in a way that was more affectionate than passionate, somehow more intimate than anything else they were going to do.

His tongue traced the top of her collarbone and the back of her neck, and Sam shivered feverishly. His hands gathered her breasts, held their weight gently at first and then more firmly. His fingers teased the pebbled tips until she was gasping.

She shifted, lifted her leg up over his until she got his hardness where she wanted it, pressed up tight and she moved until the head was – _oh_, oh yes, _there._ Jack's groan was her reward.

"Sam." It didn't sound like an order. It sounded like wonder. It sounded like awe.

She wiggled again, lifted up and pressed her fingers against his cock until it was in the perfect position and then she sank back down. His body jerked as if he was stunned and Sam went still, content to rest with him inside her for a moment as he gathered his control.

It was almost always like that – the moment of shock, the overwhelming sensation of being together in such a way, that they did this, that they _could _do this.

"_Sam."_ This time it was an order, but she followed it willingly. He gave control over to her, held still so she could move on him. His fingers slipped over the crease in her thigh, dropped lower to tease and circle.

She moved, slipping her hand down past his to fondle his balls, fingers moving in time as she rotated her hips. She lost all ability to think as his fingers moved faster, faster. She could feel his breath against her neck, wet and quick, the hand on her breast holding more tightly, so tightly, it could hurt if it weren't so—oh, _oh_.

His name rose up from somewhere deep inside and came out as a sob, mixed in with sounds no one else had ever made her utter. She rose up and down on him as if she had been born to do nothing else but be his lover.

So close… so close….. _Jack, Jack_…..

"_Sam_." He never called her anything else in bed. It was her name and nothing else ever.

She couldn't answer. She hadn't the ability to find two words to string together, even though she was making all kinds of noise. Jack started moving with her, thrusting, moving, and she's so _close_. She had never expected this, never expected to make love to Jack, to _love_ Jack so much. He put his mouth against her shoulder again and bit down, sucking hard and that, of all things, was what finally sent her over the edge, crying out and sobbing. She came with stunning force, undone physically and swept by an astonished joy.

Jack drove in hard, rough, complete loss of control. He shuddered and clenched her so hard it was probably going to leave marks and Sam didn't care at all. She wanted the marks that only she would see, a reminder, evidence of Jack's love and desire.

They relaxed in slow stages, melting into a boneless, contented heap.

"Good?" Jack asked, softly, as if there was any question.

Sam sighed and nodded. She turned her head to look at him. He wasn't smiling, not really. But there was a dazed, dreamy look on his face, reserved only for her and usually seen in the odd hours of the night when most people were asleep.

Jack leaned over, kissed her gently on the temple. Sam gathered the last of her energy and rolled over to face him. Snuggling in close she put her head on his arm and shoulder and tucked her head under his chin.

"Jack," she murmured, "that report..."

"Not now," he said.

"But–"

He cut her off with a kiss against her forehead. He brushed damp hair back away from her face.

"Not now."

She couldn't fight him. The last coherent thought she had was that post-lovemaking Jack was supposed to be the one who couldn't function.

She fell asleep to the rhythm of his breathing.

(0)


	70. Chapter 70

Jack woke up a few hours later, startled at having fallen asleep at all. Sam was still sleeping heavily against him. So he willed himself to stay still while he silently let his internal radar ping their surroundings, feeling for the slightest change.

It was a safe house. He had designed it himself. Still….

His heart rate increased for just a moment, pulse accelerating in response to the adrenaline rush; adrenaline that flooded his system as he prepared instinctively to act in case something had changed.

He didn't just fall asleep like that, not without being aware of it.

_Fucking desk job...losing my edge…wake up call…. _He thought the words and let his inner being feel them, sharp and cold.

Unfortunately the change in his heartbeat was enough to wake her. Too many years of teamwork had made her aware of his every breath. Blue eyes opened with immediate clarity. She didn't speak. She didn't even move. She had learned how to wake up in strange places – silently, thinking and feeling and _listening_ to her surroundings before committing to movement or sound. Jack stroked a reassuring hand down her back.

Sensing nothing he rolled over and sat up. It was probably a false alarm. He had woken up this way as a response to his own realization that he was sleeping too deeply. But on general principles he got up, reached between the mattress and box spring and produced two hand guns. He gave her one and then slipped into his boxers.

"It's nothing, but I'm going to check around just in case."

Sam got up, reached for Jack's discarded shirt and put it on, buttoning it hastily.

"I'll take the front," she said, simply.

Jack only nodded.

There was nothing outside but pale pink and muted orange of the sky at sunset. The air was heavy with the silence of a midsummer evening and the drifting white fluffiness of whatever was seeding this time of year.

They met back up in the living room.

"We're in the Pacific Northwest somewhere," Sam said. "Probably Washington, unless you took us over the border into British Columbia."

Jack was trying not to look at her, because looking at her right now was dangerous. His shirt was two sizes too big for her and she didn't have anything on under it. But standing there in nothing but his white shirt and his .357 magnum, hair tousled from their earlier exercise, she was the damned sexiest thing he had ever seen.

She wasn't exactly a tease. A flirt maybe; though in this case she had just grabbed the first available thing to wear that she could get on quickly. She most likely had no idea what she was doing to him.

Her words were just as sexy. She was just so damned smart and he had always been attracted to her intelligence as much as anything else, even if half the time he had no idea what was going on that elegant brain.

Sometimes what could go on in that elegant brain was downright terrifying.

He gave her just enough of a smile to let her know she was right.

"I have to go reassure Donovan that I haven't disappeared through a black hole in my office and get an update," he said. "Stay here and we'll talk when I get back. There are clothes in the dresser, and there's food in the kitchen."

"Someone should tell Area 51 where I am," she pointed out.

"Already done," he answered, though how she couldn't begin to guess.

Sam nodded. "How long will you be?"

"Twenty minutes. No longer. Promise."

Sam nodded. Jack kept every promise he had ever made to her. That was why he made them so rarely. He knew she realized that when they had said one year at the Pentagon and one year at Area 51 they had never spoken the word 'promise.'

He gestured at her, moving his hand up and down. "I'm going to need my shirt."

She gave him a saucy smile and stripped out of it one button at a time.

_Flirt,_ he thought, grinning back at her.

They went back into the bedroom and tucked the handguns back under the mattress.

Jack tossed workout sweats and a matching set of bra and panties in creamy beige onto the bed, all in her size. They seemed totally incongruent, in direct contrast with each – a lot like the strictly professional military life they led publicly and the fairytale romance they lived in private.

They dressed quickly. Jack put his shoes on, and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. Then he stood back and vanished in a hum of light.

(0)

Jack was as good as his word. She heard the hum and saw the light from the living room briefly flare and then his voice calling, "Sam?"

"Kitchen," she said.

He found her sitting at the table, eating a bagel with her favorite cream cheese spread. It occurred to Jack that they had missed dinner. He sat down across from her and tossed a dark blue folder down on the space between them. It had the US official seal on it and from the way it was bent it had been read many times.

"Explain why this is a good idea," he said, without any preamble.

Sam blinked at him and took a moment, shifting from 'Sam and Jack,' ceding control back to him. "Me? Why do I have to do that? I'm not even sure it's a good idea! You might have noticed that under the 'Recommendations' part of the report."

"Because you're the one who will be developing this and I need to know there is at least a part of you that agrees with it," Jack answered.

Sam understood then that he was giving her the opportunity to discuss this in complete secrecy and that if she really couldn't do it, he would shelve the whole thing. For a long time they just sat staring at each other with the report on the table between them like a wound.

"We're talking about something that can vaporize a Stargate," Sam said.

"I know," Jack answered. "Tell me how this is any different than the Doomsday weapon that idiot Bauer made you build."

"It doesn't use naquadah, at all," she answered. "It only works with naquadria."

"This is an improvement because?"

"Naquadria only exists on one planet – that we know of anyway. There was no way to control the blast from the naquadah-enhanced nuclear weapon on most of the known planets in our galaxy. With the exception of Earth, naquadah is a very common substance. With this application using only naquadria there isn't any danger of setting off a chain reaction we can't even calculate, unless we plan to bomb Langara."

Jack's eyes slid sideways for a moment. He took a slow breath as if he was considering it.

"Not," he began and exhaled as he spoke, "recently."

"Jack," she chided. Then she smiled mischievously and said, "Of course if we bomb Langara we can't build the weapon since our trade agreement with them is our only source of naquadria."

Jack snorted and shook his head.

"Look, Carter." He put his folded arms on the table and leaned forward. "If I present this higher up it's going to get instant approval and something this big is going to you and your hand-picked staff. This can stop with me if you give me a compelling reason."

"Do we really want a weapon with this kind of destructive capability? We defeated the Goa'uld and the Replicators."

"And the Wraith are still out there. The odds of them being the only mega-baddies in the Universe are slim. It's a big galaxy. Atlantis could use something like this."

"I know," she admitted. "I hope it would never be used to destroy a Stargate but I've been out there enough to understand how it could happen."

Jack continued to regard her as if he could pull her thoughts from her by sheer force.

"You didn't have to tell me about this at all."

Sam shook her head. "I'm not the only one who knows about it. It was one of those things on the planning table they were still kicking around as a possibility. I just saw how it could be accomplished; and even though I'm not sure it's a good idea, _someone_ is going to try to do this. I'd feel safer if it was me and that it was being done with some kind of oversight."

She had always been an undisputed expert at solving problems. Scientific puzzles were her forte, and he knew that command decisions came easily to her as well. Sam had a system, he had discovered, a way to break down the big problems until she could identify the smaller issues and then find the solutions. If the problem was galactic in scope she would find a way. She'd blown up a sun like that, once, saved the galaxy a few times….

He'd feel better if it was her too.

"So we're kicking this up to the next level?"

Sam smiled a little sadly. "Not my call," she said, but she knew he was going to do just that.

Jack exhaled as if he hadn't been breathing. Then he stood up and got two beers out of the fridge.

"How long can you stay?" He asked.

Sam glanced out the window. It was dark now. If they were in the Pacific Northwest – and she was sure they were – it was dark in Area 51 now too. She shrugged lightly.

"Until morning now."

Jack tried to look nonchalant. "There's pizza in the freezer and I have all the Simpsons on DVD."

Sam smiled at him. If she was going to start working on another Doomsday weapon in the next week or so, an evening on the couch with Jack, beer and pizza and the Simpsons was exactly what she needed.

She stood up. "I'll heat up the oven," she said.

Jack nodded. While she was busy getting boxes out of the fridge Jack picked up the blue file folder and tucked it behind the napkin holder on the counter.

The next step in the struggle for galactic domination could wait. Tonight he had Sam.

(0)

**A/N The weapon they are discussing is the Mark IX naquadria enhanced nuclear weapon they use against the Ori in Beachhead.**


	71. Chapter 71

A Moonlight and Steel missing scene/tag to Ex Deus Machina.

(0)

"Regardless," Teal'c said, more weary than Daniel had ever heard him sound, "they will not listen. For the time being, their hearts belong to Gerak."

The three remaining members of SG1 stood and anxiously watched him go. They exchanged concerned looks and Sam took a breath as if she was going to speak.

In the next blink of an eye, a bright light made Daniel and Cameron squeeze their eyes shut. When they opened them, Sam was gone. The marines guarding the room snapped to work, weapons drawn and ready, looking for an emergency that didn't materialize. Daniel waved them down. Mitchell had long ago stopped staring when the military followed the casual orders of a civilian scientist.

"What the hell?" Mitchell snapped. "Where is she? Was that an Asgard beam?" Daniel nodded. He appeared utterly unconcerned for some reason. "Well what do the Asgard want with her?"

Daniel shrugged. "No idea. Sometimes they tell us but usually they just do whatever the hell they want. But I don't think it was the Asgard."

Still stunned that a member of his team could be so easily snatched out from under him, Mitchell could only stare. He managed to drawl, "Well then who took her?"

"Oh, I suspect it was Jack."

"The General?"

"You know another Jack?"

"Several actually," Cam started and then broke off. "But why would he want to talk to Sam?"

Daniel sighed, frowned, and took his glasses off to rub away some imaginary smudges. Cameron had figured out that Daniel did that when he preferred the world to be a little blurry.

"Oh, I suspect he just got the paperwork requesting her transfer back to SG1."

Cam felt a tug in his stomach as it tried to surge downward. "He was the one who reassigned her to the SGC."

"Yeah, but I don't think he thought it would be permanent. He did it as a temporary transfer."

Something in Daniel's voice implied that he had known it would be permanent. Cameron and Sam went back further than even Daniel and Jack did – almost twenty years, all the way back to the Academy. But Cameron had been forced to admit that Daniel knew her better now. Daniel knew her secrets, and so did the General.

"Why didn't he just deny the request then?" Cameron asked.

"Oh, "Daniel put his glasses back on, wrinkled his nose to settle them in place. His next sentence confirmed Cam's suspicions, because Daniel Jackson knew all of the General's secrets too. "He has his reasons for wanting to talk to her."

(0)

One moment she was watching Teal'c walk away from her and the next moment she was standing in the main room of Jack's Minnesota cabin, with Jack standing in front of her looking disgruntled.

A smarter woman might have backed down right away when a man with Jack's past looked at her like that. Sam was smart. But she didn't back down – ever. She put her hands on her hips and said, "Goddammit, you can't keep doing this!" He was going to regret getting her drop the 'holy hannah' thing and learn to curse like a proper member of the military.

"What?"

Frustrated, Sam gestured wildly around the room. "Beaming me all over the planet with no warning!"

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Like you decided to change the career path we agreed on without warning?"

For the first time she noticed the papers he had bunched in one hand. They looked suspiciously like her request for a transfer back to SG1. At one time the look in his eyes and the set of his jaw would have made her reconsider her next words very carefully. That time had come and gone.

"You mean like you didn't tell me about transferring to the Pentagon?" Sam shot it back at him like sniper fire.

She regretted it instantly. It happened so quickly that someone who didn't know him well might have missed it. But Sam saw the flash of pain in his eyes, the pain caused by thinking that she didn't understand.

The hell of it was that she did understand. He had left command of the SGC because he couldn't be responsible for sending people he loved into harm's way anymore. He had left for them, for her, so that they were one step closer to having a future together. He had gone out of his way to create her dream job at Area 51 for her, and now it must look like she was throwing that all back in his face.

When she got her temper under control and found her voice, Jack's face was a mask again. Emotion had disappeared behind a hard façade.

"Watch your tone, Colonel," he growled.

"Then watch yours!"

"Excuse me? Are you trying to get transferred back to Area 51 or fired?"

"Neither, sir. But I don't appreciate being whisked away like I'm some kind of toy!"

They faced each other across the distance between them. Jack took a breath and something in him softened.

"Sorry," he said, still sounding grumpy. "I wanted to talk about this in private. You know this isn't what I expected to happen when I sent you back to the SGC. That was a TDY for you."

"You knew Cameron would keep hounding all of us. You know the threat we face now, and you know me."

She was right, and she saw him admit it in the darkness of his expression, the depths of his eyes. After nine years he did know what she would do and what she needed from what she was doing; and he had come to realize that she wasn't getting it from Area 51 anymore. The only thing he didn't know was if she had ever liked it there.

Sam would never settle for a life at Groom Lake when there was a threat to the greater galaxy the size of the Ori.

"Do you remember what happened the last time we were all off-world together?" Jack demanded.

"Yes, of course I do! I still have the scar on my leg."

"And it's still worth it to you?" There was no let-up in his tone. He was angry, and he was scared, Sam thought, which was only making him angrier.

"Yes," she said stubbornly.

"Mitchell's the team leader."

"I know that."

"You hold the same rank, so technically he won't be able to give you orders."

"Are you going to keep telling me things I already know?"

"I won't be able to promote you ahead of him, even though you have more experience off-world."

Sam hesitated. Her career had been the focus of her entire adult life. But now she had another focus, another purpose – Jack and the life they had been preparing for, the one that was supposed to be less than a year away. "I know that too," she said. "Will you know I deserve it?"

"Of course I will!"

"Then that's all I need. And how fast would I get promoted building WMDs in Area 51?"

His silence spoke volumes.

"If this thing with the Ori drags out as long as the war with the Goa'uld did, are you actually going to retire in a year?"

Honesty between them was still something new, something fragile. Sam watched him handle it like a live grenade. "Perhaps not," he said, and when she frowned he amended his answer. "Probably not."

"Then send me out there! Let me help end it. No one will have more motivation than I will. Well, maybe Daniel, but only him. But speaking of Daniel, why isn't he here getting the third degree about his reassignment to SG1? Or Teal'c, for that matter!"

"Because I'm not planning a future with Teal'c or Daniel!" Jack snapped.

Sam let out a groan of frustration. He was simultaneously the most complicated and most simple man she had ever known. She suspected that was part of his appeal. She was drawn to things that confused her. "Then may I suggest that I send my transfer request higher up the chain of command since you clearly have a conflict of interest!?"

Her request to rejoin SG1 was never going to be as simple as Daniel's or Teal'c's. Hers had to be official, and while Doctor-Colonel Samantha Carter had a kind of power in the secret SGC program, she didn't have the kind of power that was held by Jack and Daniel. She knew her request was going to be a whole powder keg of conflicting emotions. So why was she being so cranky that it had actually happened?

Sam sighed heavily, took a step forward, and sat down on the couch. Fell onto it really, collapsed and stretched her legs and sighed again. Loving Jack had been so much easier when she had only done it in theory. She had never trusted her heart. It had been wrong too many times. This had all been easier when it had been more complicated; when she hadn't been sure of Jack at all, and duty and honor were the things she had imposed over what she felt. A long time ago she had convinced herself that nothing she felt for Jack was more important than what the world was asking of her.

Now she wasn't sure. What she felt for Jack was real, desperately real. But once again the world was asking more from her. The fate of the damned world was hanging in the balance again-the thing that kept being rescued by the combined efforts of SG1.

Tears pricked her eyes. Something dry scratched at her throat and, dammit, she was not going to cry.

"I tried to tell Cam no," she said. "I did tell him no, over and over, and I did it because I can't…oh god, Jack, I can't imagine going up that ramp without you. I can't imagine being out there without you! I'd rather stay buried in Nevada building things that can destroy the world I worked really hard to save. But I have to do this. I know you can stop me…"

"I won't." His voice was rough, as if he was dragging it from the other side of the galaxy. "I can't. It would kill you." He was staring at her with a kind of open awe, as if he was just seeing her for the first time.

"Jack," she whispered helplessly. She didn't want to hurt him. She didn't want him to be worried about her safety every day.

He sat down next to her, not touching her until he reached for one her hands and took it in one of his. Sam's whole body shook at the connection. It had been weeks since she'd seen him and she was still too new at this to not feel raw and helplessly needy when they touched. She wanted to love him slowly, with soft hands and gentle kisses, to atone for the hurt she had caused. She wanted to love him in a way that would soothe the scars from his past.

She leaned into him, pressing close. He leaned into her until their foreheads were touching, their cheeks were rubbing and finally they were kissing. Sam wrapped herself around him and he tensed for a moment, perhaps uncertain that they were past the arguing phase. Sam didn't think they were, even though she knew she had won. He would honor the request. She could feel his surrender in his touch. She snuggled closer and said his name again and then he relaxed and held her with both arms, tightly.

"We'll figure something out." She wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question. "We'll be okay."

His hand came up to stroke long, callused fingers through her hair. He didn't say anything, but his heartbeat, when she laid her head against his chest, was strong and soothing in her ear.

(0)


	72. Chapter 72

**This will be the beginning of a tag to Prototype.**

**(0)**

Sam's cell phone buzzed in her pocket and the caller ID made her heart skip. She was still on the adrenaline high, still caught in the rush of watching Cam and Daniel risking their lives and ending a threat working together like they did it every day. She knew how adaptable Daniel could be. She knew how well-trained and combat-ready Cameron was. They had faced their first serious challenge and worked like a finely-tuned machine. It gave her a sense of confidence about their future as a team.

It also made her miss Jack like crazy. It would _not_ be possible to replace him. Cam could succeed him. But nothing and no one would ever replace Jack O'Neill.

Somehow she should have known he would call. She crawled into the middle of the bed and sat cross-legged as she answered it.

"Jack?"

"_How'd you guess?"_

"Caller ID," she said. The heavily-encrypted phone always read "Rick Anderson" when Jack called. He had chosen the name, for his own reasons.

"_Rick Anderson? Like the guy who played MacGyver?" she had asked._

"_No, like a buddy from my graduating class at the Academy. Was that the guy who played MacGyver? I always liked him."_

_And it had been decided, just like that._

Their phone calls had become a necessity, the thing that helped her fall asleep at night, his voice still warm in her ear. The conversations had become more intimate. The hour when they finally hung up had gotten progressively later. Sam had believed she would hate the distance between them but with nothing to do but talk, they had grown closer in a short time than she had ever believed possible.

There was a long pause in which they just listened to the other breathing for a moment.

"_So," _Jack said, finally. "_How ya doing?"_

"Are you asking me about feelings?" Sam felt a little lighter than she had in hours. Giddy almost. She couldn't help but tease him.

He blew out a breath, and she could picture him doing it. She pressed the phone closer to her ear.

"_Maybe," _Jack said, "_I just talked to Landry and he's quite pleased with all of you. Then I called Daniel and he's not losing his mind anymore, though he's still as pissed off as he could possibly be. So now I'm calling you and asking – how are you doing?"_

"You called Daniel before you called me?" She tried to sound just hurt enough to poke at him a little bit.

"_Landry was worried about him, said he still looked like a bad snowstorm. Landry was afraid for Woolsey's safety. I thought I better talk to him first since you probably weren't on the verge of flaying someone alive with your vocabulary."_

"No," Sam admitted, "but I can't say my trigger finger wasn't itchy."

"_Easy, cowgirl," _Jack said.

Sam sighed, "I _know._ Woolsey's not worth the trouble. You're right about Daniel. It was a good thing he emptied the clip in the Gate Room, and no one was willing to give him another gun. His vocabulary is all he has left to fight with. That can be deadly enough."

"_He's fine, going home, he told me. So we're back to my first question. How are __**you**__?"_

"I'm..." she started to say 'fine' and stopped. Jack made every effort to be honest with her, to talk even when she knew he didn't want to. He hadn't called to hear her say 'fine' in a dismissive tone of voice. It would undermine everything they were trying to build.; and she wasn't _fine_. Anubis 2 point 0 had scared the hell out of her.

"_Sam?_"

"You know how I got mad at you for beaming me all over the place?"

"_Oh, yes," _Jack said. _"I remember that quite well. Why?"_

Sam took a breath and said, "It's okay if I ask you to do it."

There was a pause full of understanding, an entire conversation in the sound of the phone humming. It was hard to tell him that sometimes it was easier to accept him as her anchor in stormy times if she didn't speak. It was easier if he just let her hang on. She wanted to…she needed to cling to him tonight.

"_Where are you?" _Jack asked.

"In the middle of my bed, in my quarters."

"_Do you feel all right to drive home_?"

"Well, yes but…"

"_I'll meet you there_," Jack interrupted. "_I'll just leave a note and tell them I won't be here in the morning. I can get away without anyone questioning it. I'll be at your house in an hour."_

"You're still at the office?"

"_I waited until Landry called to tell me how this went down. I've got an emergency overnight bag in the closet. I just need to finish a few boring reports, sign a few papers and I can be gone all day tomorrow. You want pizza?"_

"What about Thai?"

"_Done. You sure this is okay? I can still bring you here."_

"No," and she was smiling when she said it because it was just so amazing that he would drop everything and come because she needed him to. "I…thank you."

"_Okay. Drive safe. Don't rush. I'll wait."_

"Jack!" She stopped him before he hung up. As much as she wanted to see him she wasn't ready for the call to end. She wasn't good at the separating, at becoming 'Sam Carter who is not with Jack O'Neill right now.' Dependent on phone calls, Jack's voice was the solid ground on which she stood and it was hard to let go it even for a moment.

"_What? Oh. Love you."_

She laughed. "Well yes, love you too. But there isn't any beer at the house. I just moved in. There's hardly _anything__."_

"_There's you."_

Moisture stung her eyes and she bit her lip for a moment. "There will be as soon as I can get out from under the mountain."

"_Well then, 's'all I need. See you soon."_

The phone call ended and Sam sat on the bed staring at it for a moment. Then she jumped up and went searching for her shoes. It would take her a half an hour to get home, even if she stopped for beer on the way.

(0)


	73. Chapter 73

"Do you want to know why I broke up with Pete?" Sam asked, pushing the jasmine rice around on her plate of tempura shrimp and vegetables.

Jack looked up from his spicy chicken wings, startled. "You mean it didn't actually have anything to do with me?"

"No, it did," Sam said quickly. "But maybe not in the way you think."

It had been the question he had demanded an answer to, the night he had nearly broken down her door and started the whole roller coaster of their relationship. When she didn't go on, he prompted her, waving chopsticks around in the air like a magic wand. The subject of Shanahan still bugged him. As far as he knew, if the idiot hadn't tried to buy her a house, Sam would be Mrs. Peter Shanahan right now and he'd be heading back to an empty bed in an Arlington condo. "You gonna tell me more, or am I just supposed to guess now?"

"It was just…and it still is," Sam began uncertainly, "that you're there for me. You've _always _beenthere for me. When I was hurt or lost, when _everything_ was going wrong, you were the one I would turn to. I knew that wasn't going to change. No matter who else I might love or who I might marry, _you_ were the one I was going to turn to. Sooner or later that was going to be a huge problem for anyone else in my life."

Jack had leaned forward, gazing straight into her eyes and considering every word she said with the same cool calculation he used in making military decisions.

"What you're describing is a friendship," Jack said, slowly.

Sam almost ground her teeth. That sounded so irritatingly like his ability to boil everything down to the bottom line. "Is that such a bad place to start?" she asked.

"I don't want you to do this because you're...used to me. I don't want to be your comfortable fallback position."

"You're not!" Sam said, sitting up, suddenly alert. His words had hit her like a cold blast of frigid air. "God, Jack. No! You're not."

"Are you protesting too much?"

"No, I just don't want you to think that." She reached across the table and put her hand on the back of his.

"So there was never anyone else you felt you could turn to? Never anyone else you _wanted _to…." His eyes bored into hers.

"You know there was Janet, but it wasn't the same. I...maybe it was because she was also my doctor…."

"Daniel?"

"Oh my _god,_ no!" Sam burst out. "Daniel overanalyzes and then he won't shut up, and he _hovers_. You are the only one I've ever been able to say things to and get exactly the right response…sometimes without you even saying a word! You are the only one who always understands. So no, there was never anyone else _and _there was never anyone else I wanted."

Jack turned his hand over and squeezed hers before letting go and reaching for his beer. He took a long swallow as she watched, mesmerized by the way his mouth fit around the bottle and the flex of the strong muscles in his neck.

"I think back then I was afraid," she said.

He paused as he lowered the bottle, letting it hover a few inches from his mouth. He swept her with an incredulous look – as if Sam being afraid just didn't compute for him.

"Of what?" he asked, finally.

"Of not being the one you wanted," she admitted. "You know, not being the one you wanted to…."

"Never," he said, shaking his head, looking straight ahead as if that baffled him too, then he taking a long pull on the beer.

"Never what?" she asked, needing to hear it.

"Never not want you," he said. "Want you...you know, to." He put down the bottle, leaned closer to her, resting his arms on the table, and asked, "What's going on?" He was studying her, watching, a soldier assessing the situation. "You're not still afraid?"

"Of _us_? No…no…maybe."

Jack pushed his plate aside and reached for her wrist, using it to pull her out of the chair and around the table. He drew her down into his lap. His fingers traced over her cheek and then threaded up into her hair.

"I know," he said softly.

"You know what?"

"Hey, you just got done telling me I understand everything. Now you're skeptical?"

His cocked eyebrows and feigned frown made her smile. Suddenly shy she hid her face on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

"Are you scared too?" she asked.

"Nope," he said.

"You're not?"

"Nope."

Sam sat back and looked at him, held his gaze for a long time. They were both too conditioned to waiting for things to go wrong, too used to life being anything but good. Maybe that had taught Jack to take life as it came, but Sam was still getting used to that idea.

"So what's the plan then?" she asked.

"Well," Jack took a long breath and let it out. "There was Plan A, which we _both_ should have known wouldn't work. I was going to retire and follow you to Groom Lake where you would be perfectly safe. Eventually I figured we'd get a house – which you would pick – and maybe a dog and I would still have the truck and we'd both have the motorcycles…."

"So then there was Plan B," Sam continued. "You'd take General Hammond's place in Arlington. I'd stay in Groom Lake for a year. We'd both be on the planet and be able to see Cassie."

"That kind of crashed and burned too, didn't it?" he said, as if it had just occurred to him.

"So now what do we have? Plan C? Cassie's not even on Earth. You're in DC and I'm back on SG1?"

Jack nodded. It was the kind of long-distance relationship he'd thought he would never be good at.

"And where does Plan C take us?" Sam demanded.

"Is this about Anubis?"

"What?"

"About nearly losing everything again?"

"Maybe, I don't know. I need to know where this is going."

"This? Us?"

"YES! I need to know what you want now."

Jack sat up straighter, nuzzled against her neck, sucked gently on the tender skin below her ear.

"I want to take you to bed and make love to you. Slow and hard would be my preference, but whatever you want is good. I want it to last as long as possible and then I want to fall asleep with you in my arms, exhausted."

"Jack! I know I said 'now,' but I didn't mean right this second. What do you want tomorrow, the next day, next week, next _year?"_

He caught her earlobe between his teeth and pulled gently. His fingers drifted under the edge of her white sweater and swirled light circles on her skin.

"Oh, I'm pretty much going to want the same thing."

"Jack."

"Though hard and fast is good too, as long as we still wind up exhausted."

"Jack!"

"What?"

"So sex is the answer?"

He shook his head as if she was a particularly slow student and he was being patient. "No, sex is the question. The answer, I hope, is yes."

Sam wriggled in his lap, shifting around and looping her arms around his neck.

"The answer for you is always yes when sex is the question," she said. " But I want to know about the future. Do you have some kind of brilliant Plan D?"

"Do we need a Plan D?"

"I do," she said.

Jack blew out a breath, locked the back of her head in his palm, fingers tight in her hair. He kissed her and spoke, speaking between kisses and flicks of his tongue, tugging on her bottom lip with his.

"One day at time…(_kiss_)…Que sera sera...(_tongue_)…Take a chance...(_deep kiss_, _long slow breath_)…Go with the flow…."

She stopped, pushing him back playfully. "Stop!" She laughed, rested her forehead against his and stroked his jaw with her thumbs. "_This _is your genius plan? Wait and see what happens?"

"You got a better one?" The hand exploring under her sweater moved up, high enough for him to discover that she wasn't wearing anything under it. "Oh that's nice," he purred happily.

Sam opened her mouth as if she was going to speak but words dissolved on a long, slow moan.

"Could we proceed now with step one of my genius plan?"

Sam leaned back and looked into his eyes. He had such an unnerving ability to end all her fears and bring all her elaborate plans and theories down to the most basic. She let go of his neck and reached for the bottom edge of her sweater. In a single, sensual motion, pulling it up and tossing her head back, Sam shed her sweater and dropped it on the floor.

"Sounds like a plan," she murmured.

(0)


	74. Chapter 74

Sam moved so she was straddling Jack's lap and pulled the edge of his white shirt out of his pants. Jack slid his hand into her hair again and pulled her into a kiss while she worked on opening the shirt. Sam groaned into it and ran her hands across his chest, over the ribbed tank shirt. Jack's hands slid down her bare back and cupped her absolutely perfect ass, pulling her forward and shifting his hips up. He was well on his way to being aroused. Sam pushed down and rocked against him.

"Oh yeah," she whispered. Jack let go of her ass to run fingers over her back, drawing random patterns. He leaned forward to suck hard on the pulse point in her throat. Sam shivered with pleasure. She didn't know how he managed to find _that_ spot on her neck at the same time he found _that _place between her shoulder blades, but he did. Every time.

Sam leaned back, trusting his arms to hold her up, arching her back and her neck and offering him her breasts. It wasn't the first time his hands and mouth had worked this particular brand of magic on her but it felt different somehow, more profound, sweeter. A shock of pleasure took her breath away.

When he stood up, sweeping her along with him and setting her on her feet Sam gave a gasp of surprise and had to cling to his forearms to get her bearings. When she looked up his eyes were completely black, all trace of brown gone. He gave her the tiniest twitch of a smile.

"I'm too old to make love in a chair when that fantastic new mattress you just bought is right down the hall."

Sam's eyes swept over him - shirt open, tank shirt clinging to the muscles of his chest, skin flushed, eyes too bright, the front of his dress pants bulging. A soft whimper was the only response she could manage.

They left a trail of clothing, shed in between touches and desperate embraces and kisses, on the way to the bedroom. They dimmed the single lamp on the nightstand. He backed her into the bed and fell down beside her, somehow landing just before she did and catching her in his arms. When she looked up this time there was not just arousal in Jack's eyes. There was love.

Sam had begun the evening with the mad idea that she would take control this time. Something in Jack's expression made her give up on that. With the subtle pressure of his mouth and fingers, Jack was simply taking her apart in ways she had never considered in her wildest imaginings. Deliberate touches and he could make her writhe and beg and moan as if she was mortally wounded, repeat his name as if it was a personal mantra of ecstasy. Her legs fell open of their own volition. Her hips lifted.

Sam could feel him swallow and she heard his soft intake of breath. She groaned and wriggled. He wasn't as distanced from all this as he was trying to make her think he was. His cool concentration on her aside, the man was hopelessly turned on.

He put his mouth over her breast again but his hand accepted her invitation. He reached down and between and stroked gently with his fingers. Sam moaned again and froze, unwilling to move under the hypnotic movement. It was perfect and he was right…_God, yeah, right there._

His whole hand cupped her and he switched his fingers out for his thumb. He stopped teasing her breast and moved up to nuzzle against her neck again.

"_God, Sam_," he said, "it's been so long." Since she hadn't enough breath to speak she just nodded. He huffed a little laugh into her ear. "I'm so hard I'm gonna come just from doing this."

Sam turned in his arms, forcing his hand away for the moment. It was all happening too fast even for her. She rested against his chest. Her forehead was lying beside his heart and she could feel his pulse racing. She rubbed her foot up and down his calf muscle and her thigh bumped his erection. Jack hissed a breath through his teeth.

"No, you're not," Sam whispered. "You've got more stamina than men twice your age, and a freakishly short turnaround time, I might add."

"It's been an eternity," he reiterated, hands wandering, lips and tongue feasting on whatever tempting skin he could reach.

"It's been _two_ weeks," she teased, which didn't stop her from pushing forward until she could grind sensually against his thigh.

"Forever," he insisted. "I was practically celibate for almost a decade and now I'm going crazy after two weeks."

"Practically," Sam repeated in another attempt to tease. "In other words, you – oh, _oh." _ Jack chose that moment to drop his mouth to her breast again, palming and kneading the other one.

Sam made a beautiful little noise – something that was not a sigh or a moan or a whimper but a combination of all three. It was the kind of wordless pleading that Jack liked to think about during long, tedious briefings. He also liked to think about the way Sam's body reacted - the way she would arch her back and twist, pressing up against his touch, out of her mind just from Jack skimming his thumb over her skin.

He supposed he thought about her a little too much during those meetings, but everyone seemed to assume that rapt expression on his face meant he was fascinated and paying strict attention.

"Oh god, Jack," she whispered, fingers in his hair to hold him against her. "You have no idea what that does to me."

Her voice was barely audible but Jack actually had a very good idea what it did to her. He pressed her breasts and god, how he loved it, burying his face in her body, the taste of her all over his tongue, the smell, the accompanying whimpers. Circling his tongue over smooth, sensitive flesh, Jack began licking and sucking, teasing without mercy. He was aware that he probably needed to shave and her so-fair skin was going to be seriously abraded. Her response indicated that she didn't care.

"Oh god, Jack, _please."_

So desperate, helpless. To Jack a desperate Sam was a beautiful thing – a beautiful thing he couldn't resist.

"C'mere," he said, pressing her very willing body backwards into the mattress.

Sam tried to get her legs around his hips but that wasn't Jack's intention. He kissed and licked his way down her body with direct purpose. Sam let her head drop onto the pillow and closed her eyes.

_Oh, yeah._

Jack put his mouth over her, licking and teasing, sucking gently. She was soft and smooth, swollen and already drenched. He slid easily over her, using exactly the pressure he knew she craved and taking his cues from her. One hand rested on her hip, feeling her lifting to meet him, arching up and down.

It didn't take long for her entire body to start shaking; her short, disbelieving gasps of pleasure signaling the beginning of her climax and the hand on his arm clenching so hard her nails bit into his skin. She cried out over and over, clenching. Jack stayed on her as long as he could and then pulled her leg over his head, ducking out from under it to rest on her hip, holding her legs tight together because he knew she liked that, gentling her through it with kisses on her lower abs and fingers stroking her long legs.

He held her, feeling her orgasm go through him as if it were his own, until the last of her shuddering faded away and her hand came to rest softly on his hair.

Jack let her rest for a moment and then slid up to lay alongside her, pressing his body to hers. His erection was painful at this point, urgent and neglected. He sternly ordered it to wait while he cradled her in both arms. Her fingers came up and stroked the side of his face.

She tried to roll onto her side, to spoon up against him with her back against his chest. But that wasn't what he wanted either. He pulled her back flat and moved to hover over her.

"Wanna see your face," he murmured.

Sam expected him to move quickly and he didn't disappoint. She barely had time to get her hips under his and her legs wrapped around him before he slid inside, easy and quick. Wet, sensitive tissue shivered at the invasion, welcoming it. Jack leaned down and kissed her, mouth warm and demanding and Sam lost the ability to think about anything except the way his tall, hard body felt. He was straight-armed and she could feel the way the muscles in his arms were trembling from the effort of staying up. He was staring at her, suspended and still, as if he had forgotten there was something he was supposed to be doing.

Sam reached up to curl her hands over his shoulder blades and pull him down. He complied and a low, shameless moan came from deep in his chest as he began to move.

Sam pushed against him and he began a long, slow rhythm and the slide of his thick, hard cock was amazing. His face was closer to her but he was still watching her with intense dark eyes and Sam was sure he could see her starting to come apart again. He continued in short, sweet strokes that made her see stars when her eyes drifted closed.

His stamina was shocking. He brought her up and held her on the edge of another crashing climax for so long Sam felt as if she was simply dissolving, becoming part of him. It couldn't last, and it didn't. When his thrusts became more insistent Sam tumbled helplessly over that edge in a blinding flash of pleasure and with a whole lot of noise. Her body jerked and twisted but Jack had her in both arms now, banded around her like steel, and he held on with an iron grip, keeping his cock deep inside. Sam could feel her muscles clenching around him, the sensation only increasing the incredible pleasure. When she finally wound down to a shuddering, shivering finish, Sam was limp and useless, arms down, hands helpless on him, panting as she stared up at him.

Jack looked as fucked as she felt – lips parted, eyes glazed and wide. A few more thrusts and he squeezed his eyes shut and gasped. His body went rigid as he strained to stay deep. One low, stunned groan preceded a series of helpless gasps and the sound got to Sam, brought tears to her eyes and made her push up hard against him. She could feel the sensation of him pulsing inside her over and over before he shuddered, inhaled sharply and then went still again.

He was holding his weight on his elbows and knees, which he had probably blown again, not that he would care. He slid back a little but stayed pressed inside her so he could feel the aftershocks. He took a few slow deep breaths as if he was trying to gather himself back together and Sam knew how he felt, she truly did.

"Hey," she whispered, running her hand down his back, feeling the quivering muscles and dampness of sweat.

Jack's eyes opened and he gazed down at her with dazed adoration. "C'mere," he said, again.

He withdrew and she groaned with disappointment. But he cradled her in his arms, pulling her tight against his warm, slick, sticky body and Sam stretched for a moment and then sighed happily. He was almost boneless where his body was draped over her, radiating contentment in a way Sam rarely got to see.

Sam's fingers played lightly over his chest, teasing at the dark, coarse hair.

"Can you stay tomorrow?" she asked hopefully.

His voice was muzzy. Food, sex and a two-hour time difference were taking their toll on him. "Unless the aliens have the invasion scheduled for tomorrow, yes."

She almost laughed. "That's always a possibility, isn't it?"

He turned, pressed his face into her hair and kissed her. "We'll just have to tell them tomorrow won't work for us." Then he turned enough to reach behind him, swatting the nightstand until he found the lamp and turned it off. He settled back down with a sigh. Sam kissed his face, his jaw, his cheekbone. Outside she could hear a cold wind blowing but it seemed very far away and unthreatening in their cozy room. She felt Jack fall asleep with her lips still moving over his skin.

(0)


	75. Chapter 75

When Jack woke the room was still dark and the clock on the nightstand read 6am; which in Arlington was 8am. Which for Jack O'Neill was pretty much the equivalent of sleeping 'til noon. He bit back a curse about getting old and pushed back the covers. Sam stirred beside him. At some point she had rolled over onto her stomach, sleeping with her arms folded under the pillow – the way she slept in her sleeping bag off world. He felt her lift her head and even in the dark he could feel her trying to focus on him.

"Jack?"

He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose, knowing where it was the way he knew where his own hands were. He pressed closer and tried to nuzzle without scratching her with morning bristle.

"Go back to sleep. I've got some calls to make. I'll clean up, make breakfast and come get you when it's ready. Let me take care of you. I miss it."

She shifted again as if she was snuggling back down. "You took care of me?" It was teasing, skeptical. Jack kissed her bare shoulder and then pulled the cover back up.

"All the time."

She seemed to snort a little but it was lost in a yawn. "I took care of you sometimes."

"More times than I can count. Go back to sleep."

She didn't argue with him, but he stayed beside her until he knew she was sleeping again.

He gathered the clothing scattered on the floor and took it to the clothes hamper. His own he stuffed into a plastic bag and shoved into his duffel.

They had left a mess in the kitchen. The table was strewn with takeout boxes half-full of dried, shriveled food. There was a chopstick on the floor, along with some napkins. Jack dragged the trashcan out from under the sink and swept everything off the table and into it. The beer bottles he rinsed and put in the recycling or Sam would get mad at him.

Then he called his office because even though it was only 8am his administrative aide would be there. The kid was always there.

The call was answered before the first ring was finished.

"_Yes, General O'Neill, sir?"_

"Good morning to you too, Pribley."

"_Yes, sir. Good morning."_

"Okay, Lieutenant, since I know you read all the daily reports already, give me a summary."

While his erstwhile aide chattered in his ear, Jack began looking for something to make for breakfast.

Sam hadn't been kidding. When he looked in the cupboards and pantry there was next to nothing.

Pribley finally wound down and stopped.

"That it?" Jack asked.

"_Yes, sir."_

"Then set up phone conferences with the French and Chinese IOC reps for Tuesday and everything else can wait until I get back tomorrow morning."

"_Yes, sir._"

"And no phone calls unless something is exploding."

"_Yes, sir_."

"REALLY exploding, not just figuratively. Figurative explosions you can kick up to Davis. Understood?"

"_Yes, sir_."

"None. Not a single call," Jack repeated.

"_Understood, sir.__"_

Jack started to tell the kid to take the day off but knew that he wouldn't. He hung up, pushed the Pentagon to the back of his mind and firmly shut a door on it. Then he returned to the problem of breakfast.

He dressed in the casual sweats he kept stowed in the duffel in his office closet and put on his heavy boots and jacket, and pulled his ball cap over his forehead. Sam hadn't lived there long enough to get all the security installed that he wanted and he was making due with the Asgard surveillance system that had gone in the day after she took possession of the house. He locked the door and double checked it anyway – even though the dangers they faced really wouldn't be stopped by locks; or doors.

He trudged out into the snowy streets and walked in the crisp silence the two blocks to the All-night market on the corner. They had eggs, sausage, cheese, milk, coffee, bananas nut muffins and apples. He got enough to make a morning meal and walked back as the first rays of dawn were staining the eastern sky.

It took some rummaging around in the boxes that were still stacked in the dining room but he found her frying pan and most of her spices. Light was starting to pour into the bedroom windows when he carried the loaded breakfast tray into the room. It occurred to him too late that she might have liked a rose on the tray but then decided it was too clichéd. There was nothing typical about Sam. She deserved a grander romantic gesture than that.

Her eyes opened and she sat up and Jack realized that she must have gotten up at some point because she was wearing a t-shirt now.

"What's that?" She asked.

"Breakfast."

"You made breakfast?" She looked stunned.

"Yes."

"Did you bring coffee?"

Of course he had brought coffee. He knew better than to come near anyone in his team without morning coffee. Even Teal'c had been converted eventually, even if he was satisfied with decaf in his adamant refusal to indulge in stimulants.

"Yep, and I made ham and cheese omelets."

"_You_ did?" Sam was sitting up by now and looked suspiciously at the tray as he put it carefully on the bed and sat down beside her.

"Yeah!" He said, sounding hurt but she thought he was faking it. "Just because I don't cook doesn't mean I can't."

She grinned at him. Along with the omelets and coffee, there were muffins and sliced apples.

"Who did you have to call? Or can you tell me that?" She asked, sipping coffee and cutting her omelet with the edge of her fork.

"My administrative aide."

"The one you call Poindexter?"

"Not to his _face_!" Jack said, defensively.

"I don't know why you call him that." Sam shook her head and sampled the omelet. A startled look crossed her face. "Oh my god, this is _good.__"_

"Says the woman whose palette has been trashed by decades of MREs."

"No really, it's delicious," she chewed, swallowed and then leaned over to offer him a kiss, which he accepted, even though it meant getting his coffee cup out of the way in a hurry. It was already pushing the boundaries of how long he could be in the same room before getting his hands on her somehow. He had years of restraining himself from touching her to make up for.

"Thank you," Jack said, and then drank. "It's what he looks like."

"What? Who?"

"My aide. He looks like a Poindexter."

"What? How?"

Jack shrugged. "He's young and always a little too….chipper; and I think he's scared to death of me most of the time."

"What's his actual name anyway?"

Jack snorted. "Alan. Alan Pribley. Lieutenant. "

Sam gazed at him over the top of coffee cup. "Seriously?"

"He's very good at what he does," Jack assured her.

Hesitantly she asked, "So we're still good for today? This whole breakfast in bed isn't a way of telling me you have to leave in an hour?"

"Nope. You're stuck with me until tomorrow morning. Then I have to be on a conference call with the Chinese IOA rep about having a Chinese SGC team."

Sam paused in the act of peeling the wrapper off a muffin. "How is that going to go over with Landry?"

"He'll have to do what I tell him."

"I know that but…."

"I'm not happy about it either. At least they just want their own SGC team. The French want a 302 squadron to be stationed on the Prometheus at all times."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Holy Hannah." She ate for a while, as if she had been starving. Jack watched her out of the corner of his eye, the way he always had and always would. She probably hadn't eaten and he knew it. Sam didn't eat under stress and being under the same concrete bunker as Anubis-second-chance-at-galactic-domination had certainly been stressful. He'd been two thousand miles away and it had been stressful. "Who else?" She asked, suddenly.

"What?"

"You said you had to make phone calls, plural. Who else did you have to call?"

"Haven't made that one yet," he mumbled.

"Why not?"

"It's to Woolsey."

Sam choked, coughed. "God," she said, finally. "I'm sorry."

Jack shrugged. "Well some idiot decided that _I_ would be the perfect guy to deal with the IOA."

"I think that was the President, sir," Sam said, straight-faced.

Jack snorted in answer but didn't say anything.

"Jack," she sounded sincerely worried suddenly and he looked up sharply. "Is this what it's going to be like dealing with the IOA? Are they going to just…dismiss everything we say? For gods' sake when has anyone ever ignored what _Daniel_ has to say? Not just disagreed with him; I know you do that. Woolsey just ignored him, treated him like he couldn't possible know what he was talking about."

"I know," Jack sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. "Daniel was on the phone with me about it once or twice…. An hour."

"He was furious," Sam recalled, with a shiver.

"I know," Jack said, again. He had been surprised the phone in his hand hadn't been scorched or frozen solid with the force of Daniel's frustration. Jack couldn't say that he had disagreed with it either; and he knew the man Daniel had become and was probably less shocked by Daniel's insistence that Khalek be executed than anyone else.

"Did you talk to Woolsey?" Sam asked, "You know, before everything went to hell?"

"Yes," Jack said.

Sam stared at him. "My god, Jack. Are you telling me Woolsey didn't listen to you either?"

Jack set his coffee on the nightstand and eased himself around so that he was facing her, careful of the tray of rapidly vanishing food.

"Look, Sam. I know this isn't easy. You just said I disagreed with Daniel but I always listened to him; and the fact is that isn't true and you know it. I told Daniel to shut up way more than I should have in the beginning. There were plenty of times I should have listened and I didn't and we barely stumbled out of disaster." Sam's lips parted and she inhaled and he knew she was going to defend him. "It's okay," Jack cut her off. "We all learn more from what we fuck up than what we get right. The team _I _built -including Mitchell-stepped up and kicked ass here and I'm going to make damned sure Woolsey knows exactly how close we all came to dying. If he doesn't know it without me having to tell him he's a bigger fool than even I thought he was and we're in big trouble."

Sam bit her lip and her eyes were shadowed. "We lost some good men. Daniel is blaming himself for that."

"Of course he is, even though he did everything he could. Did he go home?"

"Yes."

"Jillian will patch him up."

"Counting on that," Sam said, "and Teal'c took Cam to a basketball game at the college."

"Good," Jack said. He reached out to brush at the hair on her forehead. She was still tousled from their love making the night before and he was finding it just a little erotic.

"And you came for me," she said, shyly.

Jack's eyebrows lifted. It hadn't even occurred to him not to come when she had called, sounding so exhausted and vulnerable. "Whatever you need," he said, softly.

A bit of mischief lit her eyes, chased away the shadows. Jack felt a small buzz of alarm even though his body stirred with interest.

"As I recall, you pretty much got to do all the touching last night," she said.

"I did," he admitted. The previous night he had dominated, kept her under him, controlled. Now he had a sudden vision of lying still, letting her decide where to touch; a vision of her on top, riding him…

"_Jack!"_

Startled, he blinked out of the vision and said, "What?"

Sam's eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure where you imagination went just then; but judging by the way your eyes glazed over I think we should get the tray of food off the bed."

"Yeah," Jack said, lifting it and setting it on the floor. Then he grabbed the pillow and fisted it into some semblance of shape before collapsing on it. Putting his arms under his head he grinned up at her and said, "What did you have in mind?"

(0)


	76. Chapter 76

Sam came up on her knees beside him and laid her hands on her thighs, contemplating him thoughtfully.

"For one thing, you're overdressed." she said.

Jack sat up again and as he did, Sam reached for the hem of his sweatshirt. He lifted his arms to let her strip it off him, feeling her hands ghost over his ribs as she did. A hand in the center of his chest pushed, so he laid back down, grinning up at her a bit. Her eyes were locked with his, midnight dark surrounded by the thinnest ring of blue. She went down with him, leaning in until her mouth was pressed against the place where his neck joined his shoulder, not quite sucking but more than just a kiss. Jack's head lolled back, baring his throat. He groaned low and tight as Sam worked her way up the long column of his neck to the sensitive skin just below his ear. Jack cupped the back of her neck in a gentle, possessive way. His fingers stroked her hair with slow affection. She bit down and tugged lightly on his earlobe, then nuzzled the morning bristle along his jaw.

He jerked his head sideways, trying not to scratch her but she followed him, still kissing. "I want you to stay still," she said.

He grunted. "Parts of me are so _not_ going to stay still."

Sam chuckled a bit and trailed her fingers down his chest, through the coarse hair and over his flat abs and finally making small swirls around his navel. She kissed his shoulder.

"You're so tense," she observed. "I just want to touch you. Try to get you loosened up a little. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," he answered, because really, he couldn't think of anything hotter than to just lie back and let her handle him. He lifted his hips. "Get these off me." It didn't even have a hint of command in it. It was pleading.

Sam complied with something that looked like a smirk. She knelt up again and pushed her fingers under the waistband of his sweatpants. After sliding them around in a fruitless search for the second elastic band she paused and raised her eyebrows.

"Commando?" she said.

Jack seemed to shrug. "Yeah. But it's okay because, you know, I am. A commando."

Sam snorted a little and then Jack lifted up again and she pulled the elastic upward to clear his erection. She got everything as far as his knees and then came up to lie beside him while he kicked them the rest of the way off. His shoes he had shed before he got into bed and, while Sam kissed him, Jack bent his legs up and pushed off his socks.

The kiss was slow and sweet, hot and wet, with no indication of aggression. There was shivery promise in the clever strokes of her tongue. She was still wearing the baggy t-shirt and Jack had gotten glimpses of something electric blue with black lace underneath. Being naked while she was still dressed made him feel incredibly turned on and incredibly vulnerable at the same time. Jack's eyes had drifted closed but opened with a snap when Sam moved away from him, swung her legs off the bed and stood up. He caught her hand. "Where are you going?"

Her smile was too saucy to be truly sensual but it gave him a thrill of arousal that sent another rush of blood to his groin.

"You'll see. Turn over."

He complied, adding to the feeling of vulnerability. He wasn't sure it was a good idea at first. The sheets Sam liked – high-thread count and verging on satiny – felt much too good on his cock. It was tempting to let the weight of his own body press him down for a good, slow rub. He was hyper-aware of Sam rummaging around in her bathroom and then coming back. The mattress dipped as she knelt beside him once again and he heard the sound of a bottle cap being snapped.

"What's that?" he asked, watching her warily with one eye.

"It's just massage oil. Now will you relax?"

"When you've got _that_ look in your eye?"

"Jack."

"Okay," he made a show of snuggling down into the sheets – though the friction on his erection turned out to not be such a good idea if he was trying to last more than five minutes. Then he folded his arms under the pillow and closed his eyes.

_God almighty,_ she had great hands. Intensely feminine but strong and capable. He was aware of all the tendons and bones in her hands, the whisper of fingernails on his flesh as she began working the knots out of his legs. Her hands smoothed over him, riding on a thin slick of oil, delving into muscles that had been too tight for months.

Jack stopped thinking about making love to her and did as she asked. He tried to relax. It was easy, really. His awareness stopped being centered on being aroused and spread out in the places Sam was touching. His legs, his calves, his feet and ankles and then she slowly worked her way back up; and okay, by the time she was kneading the fleshy globes of his butt, he was thinking about being hard again. She moved up his back to his shoulders, and now she added soft kisses and licks to the touch of her hands.

A tingling heat ignited under her insistent teasing. When she reached his shoulder he turned his head a little further and nudged her face with his until they were kissing again.

"Turn over again," she murmured.

And he did, in a slow roll, getting comfortable on his back again with Sam hovering over him. Her eyes gazed into his for a moment, lost in love. Her hand drifted down, trailed over his lower belly and past his cock, cupping his heavy sac and running her thumb over them. The skin moved and contracted and she smiled a little at the reaction.

"Oh, _god, _Jack," she said, with deep appreciation.

Then she started kissing him again. Jack had never known that he had so many nerve endings in his chest and abs. Sam moved down Jack's throat and along his collarbone, wet and hot, tasting him; she feathered her lips over a nipple, then the tip of her tongue. He hadn't known that the place just below his navel, between his hips, was an incredible hot spot; at least not until Sam had lifted his cock out of the way with the back of her hand and teased him there with her tongue and her fingernails. He hadn't known he could get _that_ hard just from the feeling of her breath against him. Jack closed his eyes when it flowed over his cock. His mind was in a whiteout of sensation. Tender, knowing fingers grasped the base, lifted it. Then Sam's tongue swirled over the head, and his wet lips closed around it, and Jack's consciousness dissolved. He was leaking freely, trembling with the effort to remain still.

His fingers found the back of her head again, just to reassure himself that she was real. Her tongue stroked the length of it, dipped lower and traced, like an artist painting with a fine brush.

It went on forever and Jack wondered distantly if it was possible to die of this much sensation. He hadn't even touched her yet. She hadn't even taken off the damned t-shirt. It was good, it was _so_ good he should be coming except that he wasn't. She was doing the same damned thing to him that he had done to her – holding him right there on the edge of climaxing, drowning in ecstasy and helpless under the control of the one he loved.

"S-Sam," he choked.

"Mmmm," Sam hummed, sucking, tongue circling and probing the same exquisite spot over and over.

Jack thought maybe this was it. He'd just stay here forever until he died, never go back to DC, never leave her side again.

Then she withdrew and Jack moaned in protest, a strangled inadvertent sound.

"Don't open your eyes," Sam said, running her hand down his chest, ribs and abs again before going back up to his chest and collarbone.

He obeyed, relaxing again under her touch. It hadn't been that long but Jack was conditioned to it now. She moved slightly away from him for a moment and then came back again.

"Do you trust me?" Her voice was an erotic whisper in his ear, racing from his brain to his bloodstream. _Sam's voice_.

"Yes," he said.

"So you'll let me?"

"Yes," Jack said instantly, not knowing what he was even agreeing to, just knowing the answer was the same no matter what.

His love for Sam had lived in his heart and soul. It was not something he had ever let himself fantasize about. He had dreamed of it without ever going into detail. He had too much respect for her to do that. His love for her had been shaped by her – by the consummate professional soldier and brilliant scientist, by the marksman who always had his back and the woman who had never once given him so much as a flirty smile.

Who knew that behind that professional detachment there had been this woman – the one who was just as playful and adventurous in bed as he was, the one who didn't hesitate to find out what he liked and offered herself to him in whatever way he asked. Who knew that the woman who continued to treat him with cool, military submission in public would love him like a porn star in private.

When he felt the cock ring ease over him, then tighten, he didn't jerk in surprise. He felt as though he'd known it was coming, even though he hadn't. He groaned and his head thrashed on the pillows but he managed through sheer force of will to keep the rest of him still.

Jack thought he heard Sam's breath hitch and she might have swallowed hard. She leaned over again and blew a soft wash of warm air over his taut flesh. His hips rose. He had no control over it.

When he heard the sound and felt the movement of her stripping at last out of her shirt he opened his eyes. The t-shirt was tossed absently to the floor. The panties were stripped with quick, military precision, her body simply sliding out of them in a single, sensual motion.

Then she was straddling him, sliding down on him with her fingers resting on his abs for balance and her head thrown back in pure carnal delight. He touched her finally, putting his hands on her hips to encourage the downward glide.

She was tight, drenched and if Jack had been expecting the morning to continue at the slow pace she had set, he was wrong. Sam turned up the heat, dialed it up to the max and rode him hard. Shaking, she collapsed forward, catching herself so that she could look into his eyes and let him watch – unafraid of letting him see what it was doing to her, how close she was. For the first time, Jack took some control. He locked an arm over her hips and thrust up from under her, hard and fast and deep and _relentless_, until her eyes fell shut and a moan rose from her throat and she climaxed. It was as if her pleasure was drawn inward from Jack's body, shuddering, hands gripping his arms.

He expected her to stop moving, to fall on him and rest. But she didn't. She just kept moving all the way through it, groaning and sliding on him. Her body slid down onto his and he moved up into her in movements so perfectly timed they might have been choreographed. Jack clenched his teeth and tried to hold out but it was hopeless.

He came with a hoarse cry, fisting the sheets, stopping cold on the apex of an upward thrust. Sam moved down on him, riding it, moving on it. Jack's entire body spasmed repeatedly. It wasn't stopping.

Sam's movements increased. Somewhere along the way she had learned that he liked hard, fast sex; and while he was always good with whatever she wanted to do, this was still the way he liked it best. He bucked again and again in an uncontrollable reflex. Sam went with him, doubling the rush. She came again, crying out, and Jack did too almost gasping for air as the second climax hit him like a freight train. It fractured his vision and nearly knocked him unconscious.

When his vision cleared Sam was still riding him, slower now, but still deep. She was smiling at him with satisfaction and abject adoration written in her expression. He gazed back in something like wonder because, _fuck, _somehow he was still hard. Pushed past its limits his body was starting to shake. In a moment of suspended time he waited for her to come again, determined to make that happen before he took another second of pleasure for himself. It was starting to be too much and maybe it was something in his face, or the desperate whine (a noise he _never_ thought he would hear coming from his own chest, forced up through his throat and out his clenched teeth); or maybe it was just the incredible silent connection they had.

But something made Sam reach around behind her and down and slip the strap on the cock ring, pulling it off. She tossed her head back and groaned his name and Jack pushed up into her with all the strength of his powerful body. He hoped she was coming again because he couldn't stop himself anymore. He moaned her name as it began, expanding from the core of him and racing down and out. He shot in exhausting spurts, unable to move but trembling uncontrollably.

When he floated back into some kind of reality, Sam was lying on top of him motionless, spent, and boneless. They were still connected and when he nudged her cheek with his and got her to turn her head and kiss him they were like a circuit completed, one body, heart and soul. When they broke apart they were smiling faintly at each other, utterly sated. When they broke the kiss, Jack reached up to brush damp hair off her forehead and then his arm crashed back down. He swore it was the last movement he was ever going to be able to make.

He was wrong. Sam managed to slip off of him, folding into a limp stretch up against him and Jack managed to get onto his side to take her into the circle of his arms. His face settled in against hers and he inhaled.

"Sam," he murmured, nuzzling his face against the spiky ruff of her bangs. "_Sam."_ He felt chills rise up on her skin for no good reason that he could think of. "Are you cold?"

She shook her head slightly. "Nuh-uh." Her voice was muzzy, almost hoarse.

Then they didn't talk at all. The part of his brain that could still function distantly remembered that Sam wanted a plan. She wanted to know where this was going, and he still didn't have a good answer.

But he knew the way he felt about her, and he knew the way they made love was unlike anything he had ever experienced and he knew that this was going to work. It was going to last and it would be worth whatever they had to do to make it work.

He folded her tighter in his arms.

Doing the impossible had always been standard operating procedure for them.

They would find a way.

(0)


	77. Chapter 77

**This will bring two of my stories together: Fortunate Son and Moonlight and Steel. I was never sure if they would work together but I think I have the 'kinks' knocked out. For those who have not read Fortunate Son, Jett is Jarrett Jack O'Neill, the son Jack had with Laira after One Hundred Days.**

**(0)**

Jack was never sure afterwards if he passed out or went back to sleep. When he woke it was almost 11 o'clock and the sun was shining through the sheer curtains. The slightest shift of his weight woke her. For a long moment they were both happy to just look at each other. Their expressions went from wonder to faintly-smiling adoration before Sam finally sighed and stretched and changed position. She was still draped over him in a contented sprawl.

When Jack finally moved he was shocked to discover that he felt better than he had in years. Even his knees weren't aching as badly. Every muscle felt loose and relaxed. He stretched a little, clutching Sam tighter around her shoulders as he did. Something in his back cracked pleasantly and then he sank back into the mattress.

"Okay?" Sam asked.

"Way better than okay."

"So that was all right?"

It took Jack a moment to realize that she was asking if what she had done was all right, if it was something he had wanted. Jack lifted his head so that he could look down into her face. With stunned amazement he said, "You mean taking charge, the whole ring thing? All that?"

She nodded, still looking as if she adored him, but with a certain hesitation in her eyes.

"Honey," Jack said emphatically, "If I'd known that was what you were even considering I would have been on my knees begging you for it."

Sam exhaled a short, laughing breath and nuzzled her nose into his shoulder.

"How is it possible you don't have any of your kitchen stuff unpacked but you knew where the massage oil and the cock ring were?"

She chuckled a little again and Jack felt it as a warm vibration shivering deliciously against him. "I unpacked the bathroom first. I don't cook a lot, but I do shower."

"So I'll do the cooking and you can be in charge of all the bedroom activities from now on," Jack decided.

"Are we making plans now?"

"We can make that one," he said.

Then something occurred to him and he must have done something, or there had been some subtle change in his heartbeat or the aura that surrounded him because Sam looked up and him and said, "What?"

"There's one more."

"One more what?"

"Plan. That I have to make but it will affect you. Us. So I have to talk to you about it first."

"Sounds serious."

"It is."

Sam lifted up on her elbow. "Okay?"

"I have to go get Jett. I want him here on Earth now. It's time. It's past time."

"I agree, but why now? You haven't even done anything about your knee surgery yet."

"He'll be safer," Jack answered, as if that explained everything.

Sam pondered that and then nodded. If a Prior showed up on Edora demanding an end to their worship of the Ancestors in exchange for prostration before the Ori, they would resist. She knew what would happen if they resisted.

Jack went on, "I'll offer to bring anyone who wants to come, especially Garan and Naytha and the baby, but I know what they'll say. I want to bury the Gate there but the IOC said no."

There was clear frustration in his voice. Sam stroked his chest gently. "Because of the naquadah mine."

"Yes, closing the Gate would shut off our quick and easy access to it; and we wouldn't easily be able to defend them if they _are_ attacked."

Sam knew, as well as Jack, that if a Prior came to Edora the only current means of defense would be evacuation.

"So go get him," she said.

Jack's eyebrows went up. "You mean it?"

Sam's shoulder lifted in a graceful movement. "I've always wanted Jett here. I wanted to bring him back a year and half ago after I first met him. I die a little every time I have to leave him there."

Jack's heart pounded a little faster. "I won't be able to come and go like this after…after he's living with me."

She shrugged again. "I will. My original plan this time was for me to come to you; you're the one who changed that plan. And when I come to visit I'll get to see both of you. We _all _want Jett to come be with us. If Daniel wasn't so distracted by Jillian right now, he'd already be riding you about going to get him. I'll still be able to come to DC, and it's not about me anyway. It's about Jett. He's seven now. It's time he learned about his father's world."

"It won't bother you that he's here?"

"It's bothered me forever that he _isn't."_

Jack brushed her cheek with his fingertips and then pressed a kiss against her mouth. Then another one. He sighed happily. "Years I waited to do that," he said. "_Years_."

"To bring Jett to Earth?"

"To kiss you, in bed, clothing optional."

Jack rolled onto his side and kept her in his arms. He kissed her gently and completely, and then again after a pause for breath, a soft slide of lips and tongue, tender and caressing. He kept his eyes open. He threaded his fingers through her tousled blond hair. He loved her and he wanted that to be absolutely crystal clear.

He drew back and then kissed her again, because Samantha was so beautiful, because he couldn't have gotten it up again if his life depended on it. She had drained him dry in every good and wonderful sense of the word. But all he wanted was to make love to her. "That okay?" he said quietly against her lips.

Her smile was dazzling. Her eyes were shining.

"Yeah, that's okay," she sighed. "That in fact, is perfect."

(0)


	78. Chapter 78

**This is a missing scene from The Fourth Horseman two part mid-season episode. I wrote it with the sole purpose of explaining where the heck Jack is, because the absence of the Head of Homeworld Security during a clear 'homeworld' crisis is kind of glaring. It wasn't until I started trying to write into this episode that I watched it with a critical eye and realized how many plot holes, inconsistencies and just plain silliness exist in it. (Example: there's a global pandemic so let's gather the IOC members from all over the world and bring them to the site of the initial outbreak, which is supposedly quarantined, and expose them to Landry, who gets sick in the next act….sigh.) This will be my only attempt to write into it. But at least I know where Jack is; and we'll put just a little more stress on Sam, because she can handle it.**

**(0)**

All the emotions that could possibly hit in a situation like this were coursing through both of them at the same time, along with all the secrets they couldn't tell. Their lives were literally worlds apart now – separated by circumstances and the unbridgeable chasm of a deadly pandemic. Sam watched Jack deliberately not looking at her at all and still understood that he was feeling exactly what she was feeling.

Jack's image was being broadcast to them over the transmitter on the F.R.E.D he had taken to load up with his son's belongings, with the intention of bringing him home.

Thankfully, Jett was not with him now.

Sam was sitting in the chair under the monitor, gazing up at him with the respectful and subordinate gaze she had perfected over nearly a decade. Jack was keeping his eyes firmly on Hank Landry, who was standing behind her, giving Jack a detailed report on the outbreak. Daniel was just off her right shoulder, his hand resting on the back of her chair. Sam was leaning back enough so that Daniel's fingers were against her shoulder, offering her what support he could.

When Landry finished speaking, Sam took note of Jack's eyes briefly sliding to the side – as if he was filing the information, or placing it somewhere so that he could think about it while doing other things. He was shockingly good at multitasking, even though he would deny it.

"So what you're saying," he drawled slowly, the words coming out on a long-held exhalation, "is that this isn't the best time to be coming back to Earth?"

"What I'm saying," Landry stated, "is that I can't even let you come back. The place is quarantined. I know you outrank me, Jack, but the Stargate is closed."

Jack didn't appear the least ruffled. "No. No, that's the call you had to make. The same one I would make. Nothin' we can do about it. It's not like I haven't been stuck here before."

Sam felt an irrational flash of anger, tinged with jealousy. _Let's try __**not**__ making another baby this time._

The thought shot through her mind before she could stop it. In the next instant she was berating herself for being an insecure idiot. She and Jack had hashed out the whole Edora fiasco, and they had a wonderful little boy that she had come to love as if he were her own.

And Jack would never, _never, _do that to her again. Not now when they were together, _finally._ He wasn't the kind of man who would risk losing everything a second time. Of that she had no doubt.

This was her own self-doubt, her history of picking the wrong guy _every_ time, stalking her and taunting her.

Landry was speaking again and it caught her attention. "We've got Daedalus only two days out from making Earth orbit. We can send Prometheus to get you in the meantime. At least you'd be able to run things from orbit."

Sam's heart leaped, and she was very glad that Landry was behind her because she wasn't sure she had kept the hope out of her eyes. Daniel's hand moved from the chair to her shoulder, gripping a little.

_Yes! _She thought. _Come home. At least be that close instead of light years away when I need you so much. Jett would __**love**__ being on the Prometheus._

Jack's eyes strayed from direct contact again and Sam didn't need to wonder if he was having the same thought. She _knew_ he was.

Of the billions of people in the world, she had fallen in love with the one she couldn't have. Then Life, in a twist of cruel humor, had given them everything they had always wanted at the worst possible time. They had lived in separation for a long time, rarely seeing each other, relying on clandestine phone calls often in the middle of the night.

But this separation was different. It wasn't one they could end whenever they wanted. This was permanent until a cure could be found. All they could do was to move closer.

Her heart had never realized the depth of how much she loved him until now. It welled up in her and she could taste it in the back of her throat like adrenaline. _I love you_ was the secret that only a few people knew and it was an immense one.

"No," he said, finally and didn't sound happy about it at all. "You need the Prometheus for defense and by the time it gets here and gets back, you'll have this thing beat."

"You sound certain of that," Hank said as Sam's heart sank and Daniel squeezed her shoulder again.

Daniel spoke up for the first time. "Are you sure? Jett would go crazy over being on the Prometheus."

Jack rolled his eyes and looked impatient. "The Prometheus doesn't exist so I can take my son for a joy ride, Daniel. He's just going to have to wait for his first starship cruise."

Sam bit her lip to keep from begging him to reconsider.

Then Jack looked at her – made eye contact with her for the first time since the transmission between his world and hers had started – and all of Sam's doubts faded away while all of her frustrations at their separation multiplied. The electric connection between them was always there.

"How close are you to making this anti-Prior thing work, Carter?"

Landry hadn't mentioned anything about that, which meant Jack had read her report.

"Close, sir," she said.

There was silence after that, a heavy silence in which they struggled not to make constant eye contact.

"Well," Jack said laconically, "if anyone can build the thing, you can."

Sam looked at him then as if he was her anchor. His faith in her had always overcome her self-doubts. She had done so many incredible things in her lifetime because Jack believed in her. She understood that daring to love again was the bravest thing Jack had ever done. She adored him for it. She was determined not to fail him because of it. But his trust was, to her, more precious than his love.

"I'll do my best," she said.

"We'll get you home, Jack," Daniel said. "Both of you."

"Don't doubt that at all," Jack said, and Sam realized how much she had come to think of Jack and Jett as her family. _Her _family. She felt a sudden blind panic at the thought of anything happening to them. He looked at her again and she got a glimpse that he was thinking the same thing. It was so brief that she wasn't sure she had ever seen it. But he was thinking the same thing. His next words confirmed it. "Take care of yourselves," he said, looking nowhere but at her.

The Stargate snapping shut masked the sound of her heart breaking. Sam stood up, aware of how close to her Daniel was standing, as if he expected the stress and lack of sleep to finally catch up with her. They were both separated from the people they loved more anything in the world. She knew it was just Daniel's damned determination that was keeping him on his feet.

She wasn't sure what was keeping her upright at all.

She heard Daniel making all the right conversation with Landry, about continuing their research and then she was being guided out of the room and down the stairs. They walked side by side to the elevator and rode in silence to the floor with her lab. They were almost there when Daniel suddenly took her elbow and pulled her into a storage closet.

"Daniel! What the hell?" She was stunned, staring at him as he shut the door.

Then she saw the miserable look in his eyes and the slump of his shoulders. With Jillian at the Gamma Site, he was as much adrift as she was with Jack on Edora.

Her tears started before she could stop them, scalding hot. She let Daniel fold her up in his arms because it was _Daniel_ and he understood.

"I'm sorry," she said and then repeated it. "I'm sorry. I'm not sad. I'm not."

"'Sokay," Daniel said. "You cry for the same reason Jillian does – you're frustrated. You cry because it keeps you from throwing things, or screaming. You don't cry because you're weak. You cry because you've been strong for too long."

In spite of still being wracked by sobs, a short laugh burst from her. He had taken her somewhere away from prying eyes so that she could vent her frustration in tears instead of violence. He must have known that saying goodbye to Jack was going to be hard on a decent day. Right now, faced with war against so powerful a foe as the Ori, and standing on the edge of exhaustion she had needed it.

For all of her life, Sam's tears had always been easier to shed than to explain. Crying defied scientific explanation. She had researched and understood about prolactin and endorphins and that women stored more of both than men. But it seemed tears were meant to keep the eyes moist and why she didn't really shed them when she felt sad, Sam had never understood.

But Daniel had just nailed it. He knew her much too well.

So she leaned forward and put her head on his chest and let herself cry until she was drained dry, She wept and felt as if the tears were cleansing her, as if her emotions needed to be emptied. She felt him take off his glasses and wipe his sleeve across his eyes and knew that he was crying too.

After a moment he leaned back and looked down at her.

"We're going to fix this," he said.

Sam nodded, because she believed him. They would fight their way through fire and damnation to fix it.

He smiled a little, the lines beside his eyes crinkling a bit as he put his glasses back on. He slung an arm around her shoulders.

"Come on," he said, reaching for the door. "Let's go kick some Ori ass."

"You got a deal," Sam said.

(0)


	79. Chapter 79

Cameron and Samantha hovered in the General's doorway. "You wanted to see us, sir?" Cameron asked.

Landry looked up from a pile of paperwork. He was standing, bent over his desk, holding a pair of glasses in his hand. "I did. Come on in."

They did, hesitantly, and Landry went on. "First of all, congratulations again on how this whole thing went down. Well done."

In unison they said, "Thank you, sir."

"See the thing is now, we're just getting everything back to normal and getting everyone back from the satellite sites, and I need someone who is willing to go get General O'Neill. I figured since Teal'c and Dr. Jackson already left, it might as well be one of you."

Mitchell inhaled as if he was going to say something but Sam blurted out, "I'll go. Sir. If that's all right, that is."

"I said one of you could, Colonel," Landry said, as if that should have been obvious.

Under his breath, Cam said, "I was going to say it should be you."

Sam glanced at him. "You were?"

"Yeah," Cam went on. "I don't know the kid and from what I understand he adores you. You should go."

Sam blinked and said, "Oh, okay. Thanks."

They looked at each other in understanding for a moment and then both seemed to remember that Landry was in the room. Trying not to look guilty they returned their attention to him. He was gazing at them with a kind of authoritative amusement.

"You two get that worked out?"

"Yes, sir," they mumbled in the same breath.

"Good," Landry said. "You leave in an hour, Colonel Carter. Colonel Mitchell, go home. Or go do whatever it is you do to relax. It's been a long week. Dismissed."

"Thank you, sir," they both said.

(0)

_Ah, Edora_, Sam thought as she stepped through the Stargate and took a deep breath of the fresh air, _how could I have ever been mad at you?_

She was greeted with warmth and affection when she reached the town. She stopped to see Garan and Naytha and the new baby – Lairan, a boy. Then she walked the short distance to Laira's old house on the hill where she found Jack and Jett in the front yard playing baseball. Jett was pitching, of all things. She had last visited Jett two months previously.

"Strike him out, Jett. He swings like a rusty gate."

"Sam!" Jett shrieked, dropping the ball and coming towards her at the speed of a runaway train. He barreled into her, jumping up and trying to grab her around the neck, almost tipping her off balance.

"Whoa, slow down, cowboy," Sam said, getting her breath and her bearings, hugging him tight and lifting his feet off the ground. "Oh my god, look how big you are."

Jack sauntered up to them slowly, with the bat over his shoulder.

"I take it you're here because no one is contagious anymore?" he said.

"That's right. We beat it, and we have something that can neutralize the Priors."

Jack looked down and then back up. "Knew you would." There was so much love and pride shining in his eyes that Sam's throat closed up.

He dropped the bat onto the ground and reached for her, drawing her close to him with one arm around her waist. His lips brushed her temple and he rubbed his nose against her hair.

"Missed you," he murmured.

"Missed you too," she said, nuzzling back, closing her eyes and inhaling the sharp Jack-scent of him.

Jett tugged on Sam's hand. "Does that mean we can go now? To Earth?"

It was hard to stop looking at Jack but she smiled down at Jett. There were places in her heart she hadn't known existed until this little boy had come to live in them; places that had been empty until Jett had filled them. She had never planned to lie in the grass just to watch the bugs. She had never planned to be just fine with wiping someone else's nose. She had never planned to go back through the Stargate and find her pockets still full of pebbles and shriveled wildflowers. She hadn't known that her lightest kiss had the power to heal wounds and dry tears. She fluffed his night-dark curls and said, "Yes, we can go home. Well, to your second home, your new home."

"YAY!" Jett started jumping up and down. "Sam, guess what! Jack bought a _plane!"_

Sam grinned at Jett's exuberance. "Yes, I know. He showed me a picture of it." She tossed an affectionate but exasperated look at Jack.

"What? It was used and it's small! I don't have a truck or a motorcycle…or a house."

"You have a condo," she pointed out.

"Paid for. Well, except for the HOA fees…."

Jett interrupted. "He's going to take me back to Washington in it! Right, Jack? Washington is going to be our new home and we're going to _fly _there. Are you coming with us?"

Sam looked startled. "I...I hadn't…"

"You could. You've got more paid leave time saved up than I do."

"Please come, Sam!" Jett was still tugging on her hand.

Speared by two sets of hopeful, eager chocolate-brown eyes, she had no choice. _God, _when had Jett learned the _come-fishin'-with-me_ look? It had to be genetic. She tried to look doubtful.

"Well, I don't know," she said slowly, tilting her head. "Can I fly the plane?"

Jack feigned hesitation. "Maybe for a little bit. Over Cleveland, possibly?"

She laughed and hugged him. "Oh, then how could I say no?"

"Yay!" Jett said again, jumping up and down. His face was radiating happiness with the heat of a binary star system.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Come on. We have to close up the house and get the rest of your things."

"Okay!" Jett said, happily skipping ahead of them.

Jack put his arm around Sam's shoulders and they began walking after him.

"I was serious, you know. I really want to fly this plane."

"I know. You'll get to!"

Jett turned around, skipping backwards now. "Can I fly the plane?" he asked.

"No," Sam and Jack said together. They laughed a little as Jett said, "Awwww, man…"

"All right," Jack relented. "We'll see."

Jett cheered again and ran ahead. Sam slipped her arm around Jack's waist.

"Did you talk to him?"

"About what he can and can't say? I've been talking to him about it. I think he understands."

Sam nodded. They had never tried to hide the way they felt about each other from Jett. In fact, they felt it was important for him to know how much they loved each other and to feel a part of it. So Jack never hesitated to hold her hand, to kiss her when she was making breakfast, to stand too close and cuddle with her in front of the fireplace. He hugged and snuggled with her when they were all under the blanket fort, coloring.

But now they were taking him to a place that would be very different. They would be acting very different, unless they were alone with him or away from prying eyes.

"What did you say?" Sam asked.

"Well, fortunately, Daniel has spent a lot of time impressing him with how important our jobs are and I told him that, at work, we have to act different. That seems to satisfy him."

Sam nodded and tried not to worry. Jett was smart and had his father's keen grasp of situations. As long as they made sure he felt loved, everything would be fine.

(0)


	80. Chapter 80

Jarrett 'Jett' O'Neill arrived on Earth wearing a blue sweatshirt with a T-Rex on it, blue jeans, and Nikes. He walked through the Gate between Jack and Sam, reaching for Sam's hand only briefly when the Gate snapped shut behind them.

"You were right, Sam," he said.

"About what?"

"There isn't anyone in the Stone Ring; or if there is, it's too fast to see them."

He sounded sad but it only lasted for a moment as he took in his surroundings. The Gate Room was deserted, as Jack had ordered it. He hadn't wanted Jett to be greeted by an armed guard of Marines. Only General Landry and Walter were looking down at them from the Control Room.

Jett twisted around, taking in everything he could, wide-eyed and jaw-dropped. When he finally looked at Jack he had a huge grin on his face.

"This," he said, "is awesome."

Jack grinned back and ruffled his hair. "We _did_ show you pictures."

"I know," Jett agreed. "It's just _bigger_ than I thought."

"Well if you think this is big, wait till you see the outside!" Sam said.

Jett nodded, eagerly. "Can we go to McDonalds?"

Sam and Jack exchanged a look over Jett's head. Sam looked completely bemused. Jack was just staring in a kind of befuddled wonder.

"He's such an Earth kid," Jack said.

(0)

They gave him a brief tour of the base and then took him topside, to Sam's car. He was enchanted with the bus ride out to the parking lot and then even more awed by the Volvo. Jack strapped him into the back seat, adjusting and double checking everything until Sam said, "Jack," in a long suffering voice.

"Okay," he said, and got into the front seat.

Jett gazed speechless out the window until long after they had gotten onto the highway. Then he asked, "Where are Daniel and Jillian?"

"On another planet, at one of the other SCG bases," Jack answered.

"Will they be back soon?"

"Yes."

There was another brief pause and then Jett said, "Daniel and Jillian are having a baby."

"Yes," Jack confirmed.

"Garan and Naytha had a baby," Jett said. "My nephew."

"Yes." Jack exchanged a look with Sam. He turned so he was looking over the backseat. "That isn't the reason you're here, Jett."

"It isn't?" Jett asked.

"You're here because I'm finally in a place where I can take care of you and you can be with me. Garan and Naytha had you every day for seven years. Now it's my turn."

"That's what they said," Jett returned.

"And they were right. If you decide you don't like it on Earth, you can go back, any time you want."

"I can?"

Jack hesitated and Sam watched him dig down deep for the answer. "I would let you go, yes, even though it would be very hard for me. I waited a long time for you to come here."

"What if I want to stay but I can't stay with you anymore?"

Jack made a silly, scoffing noise. "Then you can live with Sam, or Daniel and Jillian. There isn't ever going to be a shortage of people who love you and want you to live with them."

"Can I, Sam?" Jett asked, somewhere between anxious and eager.

Sam looked at him in the rearview mirror. "Of course! I would love that."

That seemed to satisfy him and he started to stare out the window again, pestering Jack with an endless stream of questions or bursting into excited explanation of things he recognized from Daniel's lessons. Sam and Jack commented and answered and shared frequent proud smiles.

Sam drove them to a McDonald's on the way to her house. They had decided to spend the night there and take Jett back to DC in the morning. Jett was so excited he was jumping up and down in the parking lot.

"Can I have whatever I want?" he asked.

"For today, yes," Jack answered.

He ordered almost everything on the menu while Sam sat out in the Playland and watched Jett climbing and sliding and trying to do everything at once. She watched him anxiously with the other children at first, but when he didn't claim to be from another planet, she relaxed eventually.

Jack let him graze on the food, occasionally sitting with them and eating and chattering about the way things tasted – he liked the apples, he _loved _the French fries, the hamburger was kind of cool, the chicken nuggets were awesome. Then Jett would take off to play again, leaving Sam and Jack to catch their breath.

"Are you going to be able to keep up with him?" Sam asked, during one such lull.

"No," Jack admitted. "But I'm going to have fun trying." He leaned forward and his expression became very serious. "I have to ask you something and I need you to understand."

"Of course," Sam answered. She was surprised by how close he was. In public they were still very careful about appearances.

"Where are the guns in your house?" The awful specter of his past was moving in the shadows of his eyes.

Sam's breath caught and she held his eyes steadily. "In the gun safe in the garage, behind a deadbolted door, all but my Beretta. That's in the bedroom, under the mattress. But I'll put it in the safe as soon as we get home. You can even wait in the car while I do it."

Jack let out a long slow breath and some of the haunted look left his face. "Thank you."

Sam nodded and had to restrain herself from touching his hand in reassurance. She couldn't imagine Jack not sleeping with his sidearm in the nightstand drawer anymore, but she knew he wasn't going to.

"I'll teach him," she said.

"Teach him what?"

"About guns, and gun safety. When he's ready. I know you'll want him to know, but-" she stopped, smiled at him gently, "I'll just do it, okay?"

Jack looked down and pushed some french fries around on the tray. When he looked back up his eyes were full of gratitude. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you too," she said, really hoping there wasn't anyone in the place who might recognize them, because there was no way to hide the way they were looking at each other. "Go get me a chocolate milkshake," she ordered, trying to break the moment before they were in over their heads. "Get Jett one too."

"Yes, ma'am," he said lightly, rising.

Jett came back to see where Jack had gone and then went to join him at the counter while they waited, running the little orange race car he had gotten in the happy meal up and down Jack's leg while they waited. They came back. Jett drank half his milkshake in one gulp and got his first brain freeze, wrinkling his nose and laughing about it while Jack warned him to slow down. Then he took off to play again.

"Everyone here thinks he's ours, I bet," Sam said, a little wistfully.

Jack looked at her, startled. "He _is_ ours," he said. "I never thought of him any other way, even before we…even before he…you know."

Sam flushed happily. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, and I want you to be a part of the decision-making with him. If I do something you don't agree with, tell me. If you want something for him, tell me."

"Are you sure?"

"Completely."

"It's not like I'm going to be part of his daily life."

"You and I talk every day. He's going to be part of the conversation now. Jett's always had about six parents. But this is different."

Sam didn't get a chance to say anything else because Jett came back and pushed his way onto Jack's lap. He drank his milkshake, surprised that it was 'melty' now. But that didn't stop him from finishing it while Sam explained about frozen things. When he was done he snuggled back against Jack.

"Are you getting tired?" Jack asked, surprised.

"A little," Jett admitted.

"How about we go to Sam's house now, okay?'

"Yeah," Jett answered.

They showed him how to clean up and put everything in the trash and went back out to Sam's car. Jack half expected him to fall asleep in the backseat but there was still too much to look at out the window, especially as they drove through the streets of Sam's neighborhood.

Dusk was falling as they pulled into the driveway. Sam left the car running and got out.

"Pull it in when I get the door open," she told Jack as he came around to her side.

She didn't have to say that would be after she had locked her Baretta in the gun safe. He knew.

It took a few minutes but the garage door eventually went up and Jack brought the car inside. When the door slid shut again, Jack got out of the Volvo and caught Sam in a tight hug.

"Everything's going to be fine you know," she told him.

"With you, I don't ever doubt that," he answered.

(0)


	81. Chapter 81

Sam was sitting on the couch, tucked into the corner with her legs pulled up beside her, listening to the shower run in the master bathroom. She was resisting the urge to go check on Jett, who was sleeping quite peacefully on one of the twin beds in her guest room. She and Jack had put the bed together when they got home, with Jett riveted to a dinosaur movie on the big screen in the living room and Jack complaining about using the TV as a babysitter in the first few hours of being a full-time parent again. Sam had asked him if he really wanted Jett to come in and help them, which made Jack vehemently shake his head and hurry to finish.

She'd opened a new set of sheets and washed them so they would be soft. There was a new blanket but Jett had also brought the blanket he'd been sleeping with since he'd been born – the blue one with his name embroidered on it. It barely covered him now but there was something endearing about it just the same.

Jett had fallen asleep with Jack sitting beside him, after getting Jack to read another section of _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe _and asking Jack – again_ – _if they could get a dog. He'd wanted one ever since Daniel had read him _Lassie, Come Home._ Jack's answer was the same, "Not now. Not yet. You have a lot to do first."

Sam heard the water in the shower shut off and the sounds of Jack moving around the master bedroom. He'd left clothes here, tucked safely in a bottom drawer under her summer t-shirts. He came out into the living room, smelling warm and steamy and masculine, hair sticking up in rough-towel dried spikes, barefoot and wearing sweats.

He made it to the couch, dropped, and crawled across it until he was stretched out with his head in her lap. He let out a long, happy sigh and closed his eyes.

"Tired?" Sam asked.

"Do you know what time it is on Edora?"

"Edora is four hours ahead of us, so it's midnight," she answered. "But you didn't used to get Gate-lagged."

"I didn't use to get towed around behind a seven year-old either," Jack pointed out. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at her. "Thank you for all this."

"You know I _want_ to do it, right?"

"I'm grateful for that, too," Jack answered. He reached up to cup the back of her neck and pull her down so they could kiss. He kissed slowly, tenderly and sighed again. "I am exhausted but it's been so long."

Sam nodded. This time it actually _had_ been long – weeks, in fact, of nothing but phone calls. It was a heartfelt and sincere '_it's been so long_.' It was that tone more than anything else that made Sam want him, right _now._ She sat up just so that she could gaze down at him and take a moment to be amazed – that they could do _this, _be together like this, kiss in whatever manner they wanted. She could press up against him and find a desire to match her own. She could run her hand from his shoulder, down his chest and down under the waistband of his sweatpants and Jack wouldn't mind, wouldn't pull away. In fact, on top of not minding, Jack would probably sigh and arch up in response.

"Jack," she whispered, "this is …is so…you know…nice."

"What is?" he asked, as if he was genuinely clueless about how they now spent their time. His smile was sleepy and a little sly.

"This!" she insisted, pulling her legs out from under his head and urging him to sit up. She fell against him, running her hands up under his shirt, feeling the shower-warmed skin underneath. "Touching, holding, kissing."

"Mmmmm," he agreed as they did a little of all three. "Definitely nice."

"So do we have time before you fall into a Gate-lag coma?" she breathed as her tongue found his ear.

"Time for what?" he murmured back, kissing the corner of her mouth.

"Some serious touching, holding and kissing."

He leaned back and looked into her eyes with some concern. "Does it have to be serious?"

Sam laughed and he grinned, struggled for a moment and then laughed with her and she realized that was one more thing: Jack's laughter. Maybe it was just her imagination, but Jack seemed different somehow. Not in a bad way. He laughed more easily, and even with the weight of another war for galactic domination on the horizon and the Lucian Alliance proving to be an annoying pain the ass, not to mention the monumental hassle of Atlantis, Jack seemed freer than he had in years. Was that something that she did for him – she and Jett maybe? Sam didn't know, but she liked it, cherished it and wanted to do everything in her power to help him stay this way.

They sat on Sam's couch, kissing, with hands on each other, stroking arms and shoulders, tracing the muscles and bones down each other's backs. Then Jack pushed his hands into her hair and said, "I always wondered if your hair was as soft as it looked."

"Is it?" She tried not to smile. He had confessed as much to her before.

Jack's kiss had a smile in it. "Softer. We'd be off-world somewhere and you'd be standing in the sun looking so…amazing, and I always wanted to touch your hair."

She rubbed her nose against his. "I use extra conditioner, you know." Jack pushed her back on the couch and stretched out half on top of her but leaning his weight to one side. She snuggled happily. "So while I was looking at your ass you were looking at my hair? That's kind of weird, Jack."

"Oh, I didn't just look at your hair. You have an outstanding ass too. Twenty on a scale of one to ten."

Sam giggled. She couldn't help it. He was irascible. She wished she could explain it to him, put it in words, what Jack meant to her, and what Jett now meant to her, wishing that maybe she understood it better herself. These were not feelings she was used to dealing with, and _this_ was more than she had thought was possible. All the times she had been attracted to someone and thought that was love…she had been so wrong. Jack had lost so much and here he was willing to risk it all over again, for her. To open his life and his heart and risk everything for her – when half the time Sam wasn't sure what her own heart was telling her.

Her eyes met Jack's and she thought that maybe he got it anyway, from the way he was gazing back at her with something that seemed caught between lust and amusement. She wanted to say something but before she could Jack leaned forward and touched his lips to hers in a lingering kiss. Jack's eyes were closed and he sighed in a way that made Sam feel as though she were something to be savored. She liked that too. It was one more amazing thing. When Jack finally pulled back and opened his eyes, he touched a hand to her cheek. "You really are so beautiful," he said.

And before she could form a reply to that, Jack rolled off the couch and stood, taking her hand and bringing her to her feet. Disoriented by the loss of his weight holding her down, Sam rose up eagerly, seeking it again. Without a word they started down the hall. They paused to open the door to Jett's room just long enough to listen to his even breathing and see his still form in the dim glow of the blue nightlight. Jack kept his eyes on his son for a moment longer than Sam, because she had to look up just to see the look of quiet pride and happiness that always appeared on Jack's face when he was looking at Jett.

Then they gently shut the door and walked, hand in hand, to the bedroom.

(0)


	82. Chapter 82

**A/N: Before I explain the following chapter and what it tags, I feel the need to address 'guest' reviews that are little more than discourteous, self-righteous, egotistical rants. It seems that these kinds of reviews are always anonymous, which seems cowardly to me. **

**I would like to respond to the 'guest' who hates Fortunate Son and Jett, condemns Jillian as a 'Mary-Sue' and seems to be taking some kind of personal affront that M & S is not going the way she thinks it should go.**

**First of all, I have nothing against honest criticism of my work (ask BethanActually and BlueMoonMaverick, both of whom beta for me.) But the 'reviews' of this guest go beyond anything useful. I am not here to write personal requests. I write the universe as it plays out in my head. If this is no longer satisfying to you dear 'guest' then please do me a favor AND STOP READING IT. No one is forcing you. This entertainment is being provided for you FREE just because I want somewhere to have it backed up. I never expected a single soul to read M & S and continue to be sort of shocked that it has received the attention it had. This being said, 'guest', the positive feedback outnumbers you by about a hundred to one. If a 'guest' in my home treated me with the kind of disrespect and abusive language you chose to fling in my direction (while hiding in the shadows), I would have you escorted to the door with instructions never to return. **

**So if this is no longer your cup tea, please be gone and leave the pot for the rest of us.**

**(0)**

**This is a tag to Ripple Effect and addressed the seemingly inexplicable almost-kiss between Sam and Martouf, (two episodes previously she was telling Barrett she was in a relationship! Pretty sure that's not with Martouf.) **

**(0)**

Daniel didn't usually stalk into her lab. He usually appeared in the doorway and hovered, waiting to be invited, watching to make sure she wasn't really lost in thought or deep into a project or just working on something that might blow up any minute so maybe disturbing her right then wasn't worth it.

But this time he came in like a twister, stopped in the middle of the room and jammed his hands into his pockets. Rocking slightly on his heels he said, "Can I talk to you?"

It wasn't a good kind of 'talk to you'. It didn't sound like he was tired, or confused, or needed help with something. It sounded like he was going to talk instead of strangling her. It didn't sound like he was really asking permission either. He had that look on his face that said no matter how she responded he'd just bide his time until he could say what he'd come to say.

This was Daniel Descended. She had noticed the change in him since he had Ascended the second time. He'd returned changed into Daniel Mach Two, with more energy, drive, confidence, and determination than she remembered him having…well, _ever_.

Resigned but irritated, Sam put down the pair of pliers in her hand and took off the safety goggles. "Can I stop you?"

Daniel gave her the exaggerated smirk he had perfected. "Nope."

"Fine," she said, in that way women had of saying it that meant everything was not fine. _Damn_, after all they had just been through she didn't want to fight with Daniel. "So talk. What?"

"Did you temporarily lose your mind?"

"What?" She snapped it.

Daniel looked frustrated, waved his hand in the air with a flick of his wrist, searching the ether for the words. "I was talking to Kvasir and he said he interrupted what looked like a kiss between you and Martouf! Sam, what's going on?"

"So you're gossiping about me with the Asgard now?" Sam could feel her skin flush and knew it was anger and not embarrassment. This was really none of Daniel's business.

"We were talking about the implications of the multi-verse and all the variations coming together and what that meant-"

"With _Kvasir?"_ Sam interrupted, staring. "I thought you missed Thor."

"I do! But Kvasir is a really interesting figure in Norse mythology and I didn't want to lose the chance to talk to him. He's supposed to be the oldest and wisest of the Asgard, responsible for binding Loki-"

"Well we know how _that_ turned out," Sam said without trying to hide the snark in her voice. "So how did you get from that to me almost kissing Martouf?"

"So you did?"

"Daniel!"

"He was talking about the possibilities of establishing relationships in another universe based on relationships previously established. He asked if there had ever been anything between you and Martouf here because of what he thought he interrupted. I said you would never do anything like that and he said that maybe he was mistaken. But the way he said it I could tell he didn't believe that for a moment.

"Look, Sam, I know all this was jarring. Jillian is more rattled than I've ever seen her and she wasn't faced with eighteen variations of herself walking around and living parallel lives. Janet, Martouf. I can understand how off kilter you might have been-"

"It wasn't like that!" Sam said.

"Then how was it? Because I'd really rather think you were just off kilter."

Sam ground her teeth. "Daniel, we can't talk about this here."

"Yes we can, and if I have to I can go look at the security tapes."

"You would _not!"_

"Then explain it to me."

"Give me one good reason why I should discuss this with you at all!"

'Because I love you, _both_ of you and I want you to be happy."

"That's two reasons," Sam sulked.

"Sam," Daniel said, "I'm worried. That's all."

"That's three reasons," she informed him with a little more snap in her voice.

"Sam," Daniel repeated and he had that look in his eyes that said he was going to stand there until he got what he wanted.

She sighed heavily and said, "I cared about Martouf. I couldn't help it, not with Jolinar's memories running around in my head. They were together for one _hundred_ years, Daniel. Can you even imagine being faithful to someone for that long?"

Daniel thought about Jillian and nodded. "Yes I can. But what about you? Don't you want what you have now to be forever?"

Sam felt a small flutter of joy in her stomach at the thought, and at the knowledge that Daniel was fighting her about this. Daniel only fought for the things he truly believed in. There was no way Daniel would let her make some kind of huge mistake in her relationship with Jack.

"Of course I do!" she said, in what she hoped was a placating voice. She made it as sincere as she could because Daniel could see through lies the way Superman saw through walls. "In a perfect world that's what we'll have. But you know that Jolinar left me with the ability to sense the Goa'uld and Jaffa and Tok'ra. It was always _more _somehow with Martouf and Lantash. I can sense Lantash on an entirely different level. I can't help but be drawn to that. Martouf told me that in his universe he and I were together for a long time, yet it didn't work out. I suspect it didn't work out because there was nothing in it for Lantash except the awareness of a mate he could no longer have. The problem, Daniel, is that _I don't know_!"

Daniel nodded again. He and Sam both hated not knowing. She rushed on. "I never got a chance to find out if I loved them for myself or if I was just compelled to love them because of Jolinar.

"And I shot them. With all of Jolinar's memories running around in my head, I killed Martouf and I knew it would probably kill Lantash too. So it was a great relief to me to know that in at least one other reality I didn't have to do that."

"All right, I get that. So how do we get to almost kissing?"

Sam sighed heavily and thought hard about that, went back to the moment and thought it through again.

"He had just been told we couldn't send them home," she began. "Janet was furious. So I figured he hadn't been able to talk to her about it. But anger isn't in Martouf's nature. He was so sad, almost in tears. I wanted to offer him some kind of comfort, something to show that I had cared about him once and I still do. He wanted a kiss and I thought I could but there was something in his eyes that I couldn't process. It was going to mean more to him and at the time I didn't think he would ever be able to go back and I knew I couldn't start that. I couldn't give him that."

They stared at each other, two sets of blue eyes locked; but Sam had been utterly honest with him and she knew it. After a moment Daniel knew it too.

"You need to tell…him." Daniel spoke with conviction and that obstinate tilt to his head and set of his jaw that said he was right and that if she argued with him at all, she was _so_ wrong.

She argued anyway.

"What? Why?"

"He needs to hear it from you before he hears it from someone else or finds out himself."

"How-"

"Security tapes."

Sam muttered a curse under her breath. "All right. Fine."

Daniel understood that they had said everything they could say on base.

"I meant what I said Sam. I really do love you both."

"I know. I'll call him tonight."

"Promise?"

_God, _the man was relentless.

"Yes."

Sam didn't expect any more from Daniel. She had watched him tell false gods and overblown politicians exactly what he thought. He would give his friends no less consideration. But he knew when he had won and he was always a gracious winner. He flashed a smile, bright as sunshine and just as warm, that said all was forgiven and he'd never bring it up again.

"There's pie in the commissary," he said.

"Really?"

"Yep. Join me?"

Sam reached over to her computer and clicked save. She checked the materials in front of her to make sure nothing would explode while she was gone and then stood up.

"Yeah. I'd like that." she said.


	83. Chapter 83

**A/N: This will be the last time I respond to this 'guest' (who is still too cowardly to just create an account so that I have the ability to respond privately, in person.) You are not being helpful. I have two talented, smart, Stargate-knowledgeable women who help and encourage me. In fact, they were the ones who helped to make the decision to bring the three stories together. I disagree with everything you said about Jillian. A character based on me personally is not a Mary Sue. That is me writing what I know and have experienced in order to maintain realism. All authors – fan fiction or professional – have a character that is based on them. You need to look up the definition of a Mary Sue – younger, braver, smarter, prettier, always saves the day, given positions of power without earning or deserving them, unprecedented skill in everything, causes the canon characters to behave OOC, constantly needs to be rescued or is constantly rescuing the heroes, has some special magical power- because none of that applies to Jillian. I disagree about Daniel's Chinese, which is canon (he speaks multiple languages and would surely indulge in them if given the chance. I am multilingual and I sign as well. I take advantage of anyone who will converse with me) and well, I disagree with virtually everything else you have ever said while lurking behind the word 'guest.' Maybe you've just not been out in the world enough because everything I write is based on either my personal experiences or those of people I know. If you don't like it and it is so 'painful' please feel free to move along. No one is forcing you to read it. There must be dozens of authors on the 'Net who will write to your satisfaction. **

**(0)**

**I now return you to your regularly scheduled Moonlight and Steel and apologize for the interruption. The last tag to Ripple Effect. Jack reacts.**

(0)

""I need to talk to you," Sam said, pacing back and forth across her kitchen floor.

"I'm at the Pentagon, Carter."

"Which doesn't change the fact that I need to talk to you."

"Can it wait?"

"I don't want it to. I'm at home, in the kitchen."

Jack hesitated. All right. He had sworn he would never put her on the sidelines, not for anything or anyone. He glanced at the pile of paperwork on the corner of his desk and sighed. There was stuff there, but some of it he could take home and do after Jett went to bed. Another glance at his calendar and he found it mercifully free of appointments.

"I'll be there in a minute. Hold on."

The phone disconnected and Jack pushed the door to the reception room open and hollered, "Pribley!"

"Yes, sir!" his administrative assistant responded instantly. Jack almost shook his head. He wasn't sure why he always got saddled with the overachievers.

"I'm DNA for at least an hour. No calls. Do not open this door."

"Yes, sir!"

Jack closed the door again, stripped out of his tie and riffled through the paperwork on his desk for a moment until he found the last sitrep from the SGC. Oh yeah. All those SGC teams. Janet. Crap, Martouf. All right. Something happened. He'd best go find out what it was.

He shrugged his jacket off and put it on the back of his chair. Then he hit the Asgard beam and an instant later he was standing in Sam's kitchen. He found her by instinct, knowing her presence in the air. She was by the fireplace, looking at a team photo that had been taken the last year that SG1 had been the original four of them. She gave him a weak, tight smile and Jack hesitated. He wanted to close the distance between them instantly, but there was something in the way she was standing – tense and nervous. Jack ached instantly with the need to get close to her again, had to feel her warm body against his, needed to let go the pretense of a professional relationship and love Sam with all his heart and body and soul and anything else she wanted to get her hands on.

"What's wrong?" he asked, still afraid to move.

"I almost did something stupid," she blurted.

His immediate response was to laugh in disbelief and say, "Honey, if you almost did something stupid there is just no hope for the rest of us." This earned him a glare. He held up his hands in surrender. "Tell me what happened? Did you trigger an alien invasion?" After all, in their line of work it was a legitimate question.

She shook her head in frustration. "No."

"Blow up the mountain?"

"Jack!"

He walked around the breakfast bar and held out his arms. "C'mere. I just came two thousand miles, the least you can do is give me a hug."

He met her halfway, crossed the great divide between them and got Sam in his arms. Yeah, that was better. He began rubbing a hand up and down her spine.

"Now what could you have possibly done that was stupid?"

Because her face was now buried in his chest it was hard to hear the muffled answer. "...'most…'issed…Martouf."

He caught 'Martouf' and decided not to dig any further. Sam shook her hair back and looked up with her hands gripping fistfuls of his dress shirt.

"But I didn't. It's just that he was so sad and I was so…shaken up. There was Martouf and Janet and they couldn't go home and we meant something to each other once – Martouf and me I mean not Janet and me – and there were all of Jolinar's memories of Rosha and Martouf. They were together for a hundred years! But then I didn't because it seemed like he…like he…like it was going to mean more to him than to me and I'm with you now and I feel like I need to tell you I'm sorry but nothing happened. I'm really good at the technical stuff and the math but sometimes I'm just really stupid about the important stuff. But nothing happened."

Jack continued to hold her, continued to run his hand up and down her back. Over the years he had heard some completely incomprehensible babble come out of his 21C. He was holding a woman who'd come up with the idea to ride an asteroid through Earth and knew how to make it happen, and he could still hear the entire conversation about blowing up a sun without understanding a word of it. Fortunately over the last year of them being more than commander and 21C he had gotten better at deciphering 'Carter.' He had picked out a couple of important phrases: "but I didn't" and "but nothing happened."

It was all he really needed to hear.

"Carter, it's fine," he said gently.

Sam looked up and blinked. "Really?"

"Yes," he said.

"You're not mad?"

Jack wanted to give her an answer that was completely honest, so he paused before answering. Was he thrilled that something had almost happened between her and an alternate-reality version of her dead snake's lover? No. But in the end there was still that phrase – 'nothing happened.' "I'm not mad," he said with certainty.

"I dragged you away from work," she pointed out.

"I had an hour," he shrugged. "Are you okay now?"

She put her face in his chest again and nodded. It was so vulnerable he hugged her tighter.

"I love you," he said and she gave a choked-up sob. "You hungry?"

"Are you?"

"Working through an emotional crisis always stimulates my appetite; and besides, that hour I had was supposed to be my lunch." To his great relief she laughed. Gently he tucked stray pieces of hair behind her ear. "I really do love you, y'know."

She nodded. "I don't want to mess that up."

"You didn't. You haven't. We're fine. Now what do you have to eat around here?"

"Come on," she said, taking his hand and leading him back to the kitchen. "I can make you a sandwich."

(0)


	84. Chapter 84

**This is the Jack/Sam tag to Ethon. It is cross posted as chapter 256 of Sunshine and Shadow.**

**(0)**

Sam had showered in the locker room with most of the female crew of the Prometheus. Everyone was somber and too quiet; nothing at all like the calm and efficient, but always cheerful and professional crew that Sam was used to. They had never been so arrogant as to believe that one space cruiser was a magnificent feat. But the Prometheus had been the first, the flagship, the crowning achievement, and serving on her had been both an honor and a privilege. She had been the first and last of her class, having been replaced almost immediately by the 304.

Now it was like the gentle hush of evening after a peaceful and uneventful day had suddenly been shattered by a crack of thunder. The storm had rained down on them ever since in a steady but persistent drizzle. Sam knew that the downpour of grief was going to come. But at the moment she was surrounded by nothing by tempered sorrow.

At the moment she had only one thought, one need. One desire. All her heart wanted was Jack, with a dozen different needs all at once. Just because she wasn't at his side every day anymore didn't mean that wasn't precisely where she wanted to be.

She had once believed that she longed for him simply because she couldn't have him. But now she did have him and the longing had only increased. Especially now, when she had stared death in the face and emerged once again with all she held dear still determinedly alive. But she could still feel the Prometheus coming apart around her and she knew the images and sounds would be in her dreams the moment she closed her eyes.

She made it through the crowded corridors of the SGC and back to her quarters by resolutely looking straight ahead and not inviting conversation from her comrades-in-arms. There was nothing they could say to her that would make a difference. As soon as she was safely behind her own closed door she reached into the back of her dresser drawer for her encrypted phone. It didn't surprise her that there were three missed calls from Jack. She was just about to hit contacts to call him back when the phone rang.

"Hi," she said instantly.

There was the slightest pause, an indrawn breath and Sam wondered if he could really be as relieved to hear her voice as she was to be able to speak. "Hey. Where are you?"

"My quarters."

"Can I bring you to my office?"

Since the time he had kidnapped her via Asgard beam and she had gotten angry with him, Jack had asked before summarily relocating her.

"Yes!" It sounded desperate and excited and exhausted and she didn't care. All she wanted was to breathe the same air as Jack.

A flash of light and she was two thousand miles away in his very official, very well-appointed Pentagon Office. She started to run straight into his arms, aware that he had the best anti-surveillance the Asgard could provide, but something made her hesitate. She had no idea if she was standing in front Jack...or in front of a superior officer, the Head of Homeworld Security, the man she personally had asked to deploy the ship they had subsequently lost in a major freaking way. There was going to be hell to pay over this. When it hit the fan, the mess would land on Jack's very large, very mahogany desk. Maybe he'd wanted her here just to get a personal report, a heads-up on the situation before the formal hearings began.

Or he could have asked her here because she had been presumed dead for a while. She had been on a ship that had been destroyed. She could very easily have been on it at the very end.

She started shaking. The downpour started and caused a flash flood of emotion that had her insides aching and tears burning her eyes. She wanted to yell at someone and there wasn't anyone.

Jack held out his arms. She watched him step away from his own rank, right there in his austere Pentagon office as he said in a voice gone to gravel, "C'mere."

Her last line of defense folded and suddenly everything usually held inside the uniform and her rank just had to get out. "_Jack,"_ she choked, and the distance between them melted.

_God, _the man could hug. He had a deep chest and long, strong arms that always wrapped around her like he could hold her together and shoulders that had taken both her tears and her fists over their long history together. He was funny and smart and passionate and he believed in her more than she believed in herself.

"I couldn't stop it." Her voice was muffled by his chest. His white dress shirt had two small damp spots from the tears she hadn't been able to stop.

Jack simply said, "Okay."

"There wasn't time. The weapon had been advanced since the plans Jarrod showed us."

"I didn't bring you here for a report, Carter," Jack said, tightening his hold.

She frowned, clutching pathetically at the fabric of his shirt. "You didn't."

"No."

"Then why –"

"Because I almost lost you and we have to get past that before we sit in a Briefing Room and hash all this out."

The blunt honesty of it shocked her. Jack didn't _do _emotions. He felt them, probably more strongly than anyone gave him credit for. He had brought her here only to be in the same place where she was, to assure himself of her continued existence.

For Jack, a voice on the phone would never be enough. He needed to touch. Through the long hard years of denial, touch had always been the enemy of denial. It was the thing that refused to lie, the thing that had always betrayed them. An accidental brush of shoulders, a brief touch of fingers and the connection between them would flare uncontrollably, strike sparks and scorch the walls. But when he touched deliberately, he wasn't the kind of man to touch casually. Every point of contact between them had always had meaning, a rush of energy and awareness.

So this hug…the way he was holding her now was intense, solid, thrumming with relief and gratitude. He turned his face into her tousled and still-damp hair and exhaled as if he had been holding his breath for days. Then he tilted her face up to kiss her. He kissed profoundly, desperately, almost greedily, as if he thought it might be for the last time, as though he had just faced living without her forever and had to drink her all in now.

In his kiss Sam felt all his thoughts. That he was happy she had made it back, that she was alive and safe, that she was home. That he loved her more than his own soul. She kissed back and her lips gave him all the words that neither one of them could say.


	85. Chapter 85

"So," Daniel said, trying to sound casual as he stirred sugar into his second cup of coffee, "what was Jack's mood like when you saw him?"

Sam reached for her Coke and paused to consider carefully. "He was...calm."

The word snapped Daniel's head up and he froze for a moment. Jack sarcastic and acting like a slightly befuddled goofball was normal. Jack laconic and appearing to be bored meant he was absorbing every single nuance of everything that was happening around him. Jack calm was deadly dangerous. It meant there was controlled fury just waiting to come out. Jack's fury was better vented than controlled; vented, it was survivable.

If Jack was coming to the debriefing about Tegalus in that mood, they had better all be on their toes. A wise man wouldn't so much as step on Jack's shadow if his temper had risen to the edge implied by the word 'calm.' Daniel wondered how well Landry knew Jack and how well this debriefing was going to go.

Daniel muttered something under his breath that Sam didn't catch.

Sam sipped at her Coke and ate some french fries. "This scared him, I think," she said. "_I_ scared him."

Daniel nodded. "I scared her, too." It was hard for him to admit and he knew he had scared Jillian before. It was a knife that cut both ways. SG8 had been late or lost or hurt enough times for him to understand what she had gone through. But it seemed like he did this to her more times than not, and she had never decided to die and Ascend once, let alone _twice_. The memories of the times he had believed that he'd lost everything – again – were a vise around his heart. "We've all scared each other. Haven't we?"

"This feels different," Sam said. "I'm not sure why."

Daniel drank his coffee and put the mug back down, staring into the dark liquid. He was used to losing everything. He was used to the feeling of fear that went along with love. He wasn't certain that Sam had truly grasped the implications before now. Being in love with Jack was certainly no new experience for her, but their love had existed without a kiss or single word to give it life. Now there was more to lose.

In his and Jillian's case they'd had months of happiness – true, blissful, unexpected contentment that had not been daunted in the least by sleepless nights and trying to figure out their new routine. Daniel wasn't really shocked that Jillian had reacted badly to Tegalus. The darkness must have seemed particularly shocking after so much time in the sunshine.

Slowly he said, "This is love, I guess: the daily prospect of joy mixed with the fear of pending disaster. When that ship blew…I-"

"I know," Sam cut him off but Daniel forged ahead anyway.

"Thirty-nine people died and any one of them could have been you or Teal'c…or Mitchell."

"Daniel, I know," Sam said, gritting her teeth. When push came to shove she wasn't really any better at discussing deep emotions than Jack was. She watched Daniel pick up his coffee mug with both hands and realized he was shaking; a delayed reaction, crashing from the adrenaline high when all the fighting was done. Sam reached over and gently touched his arm. Sometimes touch was all Daniel needed to kick him back to normal.

But when he looked up and made eye contact with her, his gaze was still shadowed by fear and old grief. A silence fell between them but it wasn't the usual easy breathing space that came when neither of them felt like talking anymore.

They were interrupted by an SF coming to tell them that General O'Neill had arrived on the base and the debriefing would start in ten minutes. Sam thanked and dismissed him while getting up and gathering trays and cups. It was like Jack to arrive unannounced and have people scrambling. He wanted the truth and he was more likely to get it if he had everyone a little off balance from the start.

But it took more than an unexpected arrival to rattle the personnel of the SGC, and certainly SG1. Mitchell might get a little shaken but he wouldn't let it show. Still refusing to let Jack ever get to him, Daniel took a moment to top off his coffee as Sam tossed the remains of their lunch into the garbage and stowed the trays.

"Ready?" Daniel asked.

"As I'll ever be," Sam answered.

(0)


	86. Chapter 86

There was no doubt in Sam's mind which Jack O'Neill was waiting for them in the Briefing Room. She had first met Jack in this room, so it would always have a soft spot in her heart. But the man sitting at the top of the table with his eyes on the stairs was General O'Neill and there was no mistake about that.

SG1 had always survived and triumphed because of a complex dance of power. There was rank and training and an ever-changing pattern of who would be dominant. They had all served and they were good at assessing one another's skills and letting the one most likely to succeed take the lead.

Now, however, no matter the measuring stick that was used, Jack was the dominant one in the room - in the whole damned Stargate Program for that matter. He was wearing his blues, no jacket, but it was an obvious statement of his intent and mindset. Sam suddenly felt underdressed in her gray-blue camo and wondered if Mitchell felt the same.

Teal'c moved easily to the chair on Jack's left. Daniel, still as irreverent of the military as he had ever been, strolled to the chair on Jack's right and dropped into it with a casual indifference that Sam suspected was entirely feigned. No one knew the man seated at the head of the table better than Daniel, not even her.

"Hey, Jack," he said and the words were friendly but there was an edge in his unusually soft voice. He got a sideways, eyebrows-lifted look from Jack in return.

Sam and Mitchell froze at the top of the stairs and came to attention. Sam felt Mitchell's arm twitch as if he was stopping just short of a full salute, which wasn't even required in the situation.

"At ease, Colonels," Jack said, much too softly. "Have a seat."

Sam went to sit by Daniel, leaving the seat beside Teal'c for Mitchell. It was understood that the chair at the other end of the table was for General Landry, who could be seen through his office window talking on the red phone.

They waited in silence while Jack read through Landry's preliminary report. Landry joined them finally and Jack asked, "What did he say?"

As Landry sat down in the remaining chair he said, "We'll talk in my office later."

Jack nodded and put the report off to the side. "All right, Daniel, let's start. What happened when you got to Rand? They had agreed to listen to what you had to say and we tagged you with a locator beacon."

"Yes, well, they lied," Daniel said bitterly. "Turns out lying for your gods is an accepted practice throughout the galaxy." Jack shot him a look that said to cut the sarcasm and Daniel glared at him for a moment but took a breath and went on. "They took everything we had on us, including the beacon. Then they imprisoned us."

Jack looked at Mitchell, who managed not to squirm. "That's when I deployed Prometheus," Jack stated.

"At my request," Sam said, quickly.

"It was my request too," Mitchell said, unwilling to let her take the blame alone. "You just volunteered to do the asking."

"But officially my name will be on the report."

"Carter," Jack said, low and quiet. She subsided. "Go on, Mitchell."

"Yes, sir," Cam said. "When we arrived the first thing we did was attempt to retrieve Dr. Jackson via the beacon but the device itself was the only thing we got. At that point we became aware that the satellite was powering up and Colonel Pendergast ordered it to be fired upon."

"That was when we found out shield technology had been added," Sam added. "The weapon fired on us and we sustained considerable damage. The beam cut right through our Asgard shields, sir. We didn't even have sublight engines anymore, much less hyperdrive."

Jack's eyes settled on her and her alone for the first time since they had all been in the room together. He studied her for a moment, no doubt running through a dozen questions he wanted to ask. Sam steeled herself for all of them, returning his steady gaze. She'd had the good sense to finally pick a man who compelled her to be strong, who wasn't afraid to make enormous demands on her, who didn't doubt her courage or her toughness and in fact reveled in them.

But instead of questions, Jack said, "I'm sure you did everything you could, Carter."

"Yes, sir. I-"

"Not now, Colonel," Jack interrupted. "Put it in your written report."

"Yes, sir."

Landry drew Jack's attention before he could say anything else. "I'm already getting preliminary reports from the personnel who survived the damaged section. You'll have those by tomorrow."

Jack nodded again, once and curtly. There was still a disturbing lack of expression on his face. Mitchell spoke up, "Pendergast knew we had time while the weapon powered up again and he deployed the 302s."

Teal'c's deep rumble added, "That is how Colonel Mitchell and I came to be off the ship at the time of its destruction. But we were unable to damage the weapon enough to prevent it from firing at the Prometheus again. We could hear Colonel Pendergast asking for terms of surrender."

"He was trying to give me time to restore the ship's sublight engines, sir," Sam said, her voice carefully neutral. "When I couldn't do it in the time I had, he ordered the evacuation, with a rendezvous point in Caledonian territory. That was when the weapon fired for the third time and the ship was destroyed."

There was silence for a moment and then Jack looked at Daniel again. "Did you know about any of this?"

"Jarrod and I were in the Rand Command Center when Minister Nadal ordered the ship destroyed." All trace of indifference had left Daniel's tone and body language. He was seething inside and everyone knew it.

They continued, back and forth, each giving his or her recollections of the events, answering Jack's questions with professional stoicism. They were riding the undercurrents. The three original members of SG1 recognized them easily and Mitchell had been military long enough – and was just intimidated enough by O'Neill – to pick up on them quickly. They were all smart enough to know that none of them had really done anything of which Jack would disapprove. But they had all been involved in the massive clusterfuck that had been their last mission and they were reporting to the man who was going to have to talk to President Hayes about it.

When they were done there was a long silence. Jack leaned back in the chair and seemed focused inward for a while. No one dared to speak, not even Daniel. Then Jack stood up, gathering some papers into the folder in front of him. Landry, Mitchell, Carter and Teal'c stood up with him. Daniel stood more slowly and then walked behind Jack to get coffee.

_Dammit, Daniel, _Sam thought, _do __**not **__prick him right now or we all might wind up bleeding._

But then she saw that Daniel's hands were shaking as he poured coffee from the green carafe. He wasn't being disrespectful. He was reliving those moments when he'd thought they were all lost. Surely Jack knew Daniel well enough to realize that.

When Jack turned around to look at Daniel, Sam couldn't see his expression but she hoped there was some concern in it, some flicker of emotion. Daniel drank with both hands around the cup, self-medicating with his drug of choice, and then said, "You want me to come with you? To talk to Hayes, I mean."

After a pause, Jack shook his head. "No. Appreciate the offer though."

"Okay," Daniel said, and drank again.

Jack turned back to the rest of them. "Do you need anything else, Jack?" Landry asked.

"Not at the moment. I can hold off the President for a few more days. He's proven to be pretty reasonable. He'll understand the need to get all the reports first. I'll put Davis on arranging the memorial service."

Landry gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

"Is there anything else you want from us, sir?" Sam asked.

Jack looked at her with the full impact of his penetrating, fathomless eyes.

"I'll let you know," he said. Then he and General Landry disappeared into the office.

(0)

[Type text]


	87. Chapter 87

**A little Christmas gift in the form of a Jack/Sam/team adventure. This falls between Ethon and Off the Grid in season 9. It's currently 4 chapters and will probaby be longer. Once again the Muse is just running with this, so we'll all findo ut what happens together! ;-)**

**Thanks to BethanyActually and BlueMoonMaverick for the extra eyes on this, in spite of it being the holidays! You two rock!**

**(0)**

Sam woke with a start, weak and unusually disoriented. She lay absolutely still, getting her bearings. But nothing had changed. She was still in a dingy cell with a concrete floor, a door of solid metal and open windows with metal bars on them. The light came through in a way that showed the approach of winter and how they would survive that Sam wasn't sure.

Of course if they didn't eat soon winter wasn't going to be a problem.

She listened carefully to see if there was any sound, any hint of life outside their cell. But it was all quiet. Too quiet. Much too quiet. She sat up so fast it made her head swim. "Jack?" She asked into the stillness.

He was lying prone on the hard, cold floor and seemed sound asleep. She called him again but he didn't stir at all and Sam's heart stuttered to a brief halt. Maybe he wasn't sleeping…maybe he was…he was….

Sam couldn't move. She held her breath and listened, watched him more carefully than she had ever watched anything. Then she went weak with relief when she realized that Jack's chest was rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. When she heard the soft exhalation of his breathing she collapsed onto her back again. Tears of relief and frustration pricked her eyes. "Jack," she whispered.

They had been in the capital city when the civil war broke out. All of SG1 had been invited back to PK3-4910 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the treaty Daniel had brokered between the natives and Earth. The planetary administration had insisted that O'Neill accompany them, as he had been a large part of the reason they had agreed to the talks in the first place. It may have frustrated Daniel, but the society was a militant one and Jack and Teal'c had been closer to speaking the 'language' than Daniel. In the end it was Daniel's treaty but it would never have gotten off the ground with Jack.

The fighting had been frightening and intense and they had been shockingly out numbered. Their weapons were all stored in vaults at the main entrance to the presidential complex where they had been staying, they had been caught off guard and unarmed. Sam had no idea where Daniel and Teal'c and Mitchell were. She hoped they were still alive. She only knew that the city had gone quiet and even the guards on their cell had gone. No one had brought food in days. There was a trough with flowing water in it that ran from one end of their cell to the other, appearing from under one wall and disappearing under the opposite. They had found two metal cups on hooks. There was a deep pit with a metal cover on it that served as a latrine.

And that was all.

Sam got up again, forced herself with an extreme effort. She staggered across the cell and used one of the cups to drink. Then she filled the other one. Then she soaked her bandana in the water and carried both to Jack. She fell to her knees beside him and touched the bandana to his forehead.

"Hey, Jack," she said, in a trembling voice. She took a breath to steady herself. "You need to drink something." He didn't move and Sam wondered if it was cruel to wake him up. Maybe it was better to let him rest. He could drink when he came back to consciousness himself. But she needed to see him move, to hear his voice, which she knew was selfish but she couldn't help it. "Jack?"

Jack grunted in his sleep, but he didn't open his eyes. Sam touched the back of her hand to his cheekbone and then his forehead. His fever was still raging. His skin was hot and dry to the touch. He looked terrible – far too pale, his rugged face shadowed and sunken. She stroked the beard that had grown over the last few days, fascinated by the texture and the color – more silver than brown, like his hair. A wave of panic washed over her and she was afraid suddenly. She was afraid that Jack was dying, that he would die and leave her all alone, heartbroken. "Jack," she sighed, "I need you. Please wake up." She ground her teeth against the panic and got mad, "Jack! You son of a bitch. Wake _up! _Don't you dare leave me!"

His eyes opened with a snap. "Huh?"

In spite of his obvious confusion Sam smiled in relief. "Hey," she said, wiping his forehead again with the bandana. Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them away furiously.

Jack blinked and then focused on her face. "Hey," he stopped and coughed drily. His voice was breathy and weak, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered. He was alive.

"Can you sit up? You need to drink."

Jack struggled to rise and then, to her shock, to stand. "Jack-"

"Need the latrine," he said, "Gotta pee."

Sam felt suddenly ridiculously happy. If he had to use the latrine it meant his body was still functioning, at least on some level. He'd refuse if she offered to help him. But she could get him on his feet and stand ready to stop him if he toppled over.

The guards had beaten him before throwing him in the cell with her because – Jack being Jack – he hadn't been able to resist making a smart-assed comment on their way here. He's been beaten and kicked and then had been thrown face first into mud as well. He must have swallowed some of it because he had gotten violently ill in the next twenty-four hours, losing what food he had come in with. That had been days ago but his fever continued steadily and he was weak and getting weaker.

Sam never thought she would be so glad to listen to the sound of Jack relieving himself. She was worried that he might be bleeding internally but was afraid to ask him if there was blood in it. She knew he wouldn't let her look and he wouldn't tell her the truth.

By the time he made it back to her, it was clear he was exhausted. She offered him the cup as he sank down beside her. He looked back at her with eyes that looked flat and hopeless for the first time since she had known him. It bothered her more than she was willing to admit, because if one of them was giving up hope it might send her over the edge of sanity.

But to her continued relief Jack nodded and took the cup, letting his fingers brush hers as he did. He drank without pausing, draining the cup and then putting it down on the floor. She reached for it.

"More?" She asked, too eagerly.

Jack smiled a little and touched her cheek. "You don't have to wait on me-"

"No, I want to. Really."

Jack put his arm around her shoulders. "In a minute. Just sit with me. Okay?"

She could see the sorrow in his face and couldn't bear it. She put her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his arm.

Jack closed his eyes, sighing wearily. Sam snuggled closer. Even like this – sick and worn out, hopeless - Jack looked good. He always looked good to her. She wanted to hold him in her arms, bury her face in his chest. She didn't care what he smelled like – and they were both rank after so many days in captivity, but Jack was worse because of the mud. She had tried to wash it off of him but it still clung to his clothes in reeking, dried on clumps. None of that mattered. He was _Jack._

"Your hands are cold," Jack said, softly.

"I'm fine," she protested.

He smiled a little and took her hands into his big, solid warm ones and held them gently. He leaned against her. "So, I want you to give it to me straight."

Sam inhaled, not wanting him to ask her if she had figured out a way out of here yet – because she hadn't.

"The beard," he went on, "It's gray isn't it?"

Sam shook her head. "It's a stunning shade of silver, actually."

"Really?

"It looks good on you. Sexy," she assured him quickly.

"Silver fox-like?"

"Uh-huh," she nodded like a bobble head doll.

"The way you like it?"

"Exactly."

"Good," he sighed again and leaned back against the cold wall.

Sam hated that Jack had stopped complaining. She wanted him bitching and griping about the lack of food and heat and that he was missing the hockey season. She wanted him whining that the water tasted bad and he wanted a beer.

But he just let go of her, laid down on his side, put his head in her lap and fell asleep again. Sam let him, stroking his hair and beard with tender fingers. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head.

"I'm going to get you out of here," she whispered.

Jack stirred, sighed and murmured, "I know."

(0)


	88. Chapter 88

Mitchell had fought like a Sodan demon when the rebels had tried to capture him. He had used every last technique he had been taught and it had worked. He had left four rebels lying in the mud and blood and then he had taken off at a dead run. He'd taken more than one blow to his head and his ears were ringing with more than the explosions of battle. He had seen the General and Sam being dragged away in one direction just before he had been forced to fight for his life. He had seen Jackson and Teal'c being dragged in another.

Cam slunk into a dark alley and went to the back of it, crouching behind some crates and bags of garbage in the shadows. He checked himself over for injuries but he seemed in one piece. There was a knife wound – a slice – on his forearm. He touched it and winced but it wouldn't slow him down. He ripped part of his jacket sleeve into a strip, used it to put pressure on the wound until it stopped bleeding and then he wrapped it as a bandage, tying it with one hand and his teeth.

He put his head back against the stone wall of the building behind him and waited. Night would come eventually and, he hoped, with it an end to the fighting. At least temporarily. Then he made a decision that wasn't even really a decision. He had to go after Teal'c and Jackson first. Jackson was a civilian and Teal'c…Teal'c wouldn't survive without tretonin. If they had taken that away from him….

They would rail at him for doing this, for looking for them first. Well, Daniel would rail. Teal'c would glare. They would want him to find Sam first – and Sam would want to kick him in the balls for abandoning the civilian and Teal'c, who needed tretonin.

Damned if he did. Damned if he didn't. Mitchell sighed. But when night fell and the city descended into an uneasy silence, lit only by the fires still raging out of control in various parts of it, Cameron got up and crept out of his alley and went in the direction he had last seen Teal'c and Jackson.

(0)

When Sam woke again it was because Jack's soft, resonant voice was saying "Hel-lo?" She sat up and found his hand on her shoulder restraining her and he whispered in her ear, "Shhh."

Confused, Sam looked in the direction Jack was looking. There was a young boy crouched by their window, staring at them through the bars. He was about ten years-old, or whatever the equivalent was on this planet. His hair was dark and straight, blunt cut at the shoulder. His eyes were large and gray.

"How'd you get in there?" the boy asked.

"The rebels put us in here," Jack answered. "What's your name?"

"Tine," the boy told them. "You're not bad guys?"

"No," Jack said. His voice was still scratchy and he was shivering with fever. "But we need to get out of here."

"We need food," Sam said, thinking that a ten-year-old was far more likely to be able to get them something to eat than break them out of prison. She slid her hand down Jack's arm and felt his pulse. It was fast and shallow.

The boy nodded. "Okay. I'll be back."

Jack slumped over on his side again, pillowing his head on her leg. Sam stroked his face.

"Jack?"

"Mmm?"

"Is this a dream?"

"You mean a nightmare?"

"No, this part. The boy."

"Not unless we're having the same dream."

Sam was so hungry she thought that might actually be possible.

"You should try to sleep again," Jack said.

"No! I'm afraid to sleep. I keep trying not to." It was out before she could stop it.

Jack opened his eyes. Well, he squinted one open and looked at her. Sam bit her lip. She didn't want to say any more. It felt like a betrayal of hope. She looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"If I fall asleep, you might…you might…."

Jack struggled to sit up even though she made a sound of protest and tried to push him back down. He gathered her into his trembling arms. Sam clung to him, buried her face in his chest. A part of her was still surprised they could do this, hold each other like this.

"I'm so scared that if I sleep you'll die, all alone, in this hell hole," she choked out. It was true. She had lain awake for hours listening to him breathe, so afraid he would stop; and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Shhh," Jack said, "it's all right. Honey, it's all right."

"No it's _not,_" Sam said angrily, pushing back, dashing tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands. She took a few breaths that were more like panting gasps. "They all… they've all… It's _not _all right!"

"Then it's not," Jack said. "But we're about to be fed, I think. That's more hope than we've had in days."

"Then lie down again," Sam said, untangling them and urging him to put his head back in her lap. "Just sleep, and I'll wake you when Tine returns."

He didn't argue, settling down with a heavy sigh. Just that small effort had exhausted him. Sam bit her lip again and stroked his hair. He was burning up but he fell back into a restless sleep.

Sam put her head back against the wall and waited, eyes fixed on the barred window across the room. Love was hard, she had discovered, True love at least because now her heart was full of glory and a whole new host of fears. Being forced to sit, without being allowed so much as the luxury of forming a plan of action, was all new to Sam. She had always been able to create her own courage by moving, thinking, _acting_. Now everyone who meant anything to her was in danger and she had no way of helping.

The only comfort was knowing that wherever Daniel, Teal'c and Mitchell, they were probably feeling the same way.

(0)


	89. Chapter 89

The capital city on PK3-4910 was called Ordenebel by the people who inhabited it. Daniel had traced it to German roots and said it meant "Place of Fog." Interestingly, at least to Daniel, the planet itself was called Arde, or – as Jackson had explained – Erde, which was German for "Earth".

Mitchell had tracked Jackson and Teal'c for two days, hindered by the fog which didn't seem to hinder the rebels holding them. They were being held in an encampment outside the city. He had found them because they had made a point of dropping personal items all along the way – a trail of breadcrumbs made up of compasses and pens, one radio and Daniel's watch among other things.

When he had stopped to pick up Teal'c's dog tags he had muttered to himself, "Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall." He had pocketed the tags with the rest of the things he had picked up along the way, looked carefully for the next clue as to their passage through the woods and continued on. He was suddenly grateful to his grandfather, who had taken him hunting and taught him to track. He forged on relentlessly because he was _not_ going to be the one who lost SG1.

When he came at last to the camp in the woods he waited until night had fallen to figure out where Teal'c and Daniel actually were. He had been grateful again when he found out they were being held in a tent – under guard and tied up but it was still a tent and easier to break out of than a holding cell of concrete and iron.

He'd harbored a faint hope that the camp would drink itself into a collective stupor and pass out before midnight, but he'd had no such luck. For all that the rebels were a trouble-making, government-hating group of militant rednecks, they seemed well trained. There was drinking and revelry but not among the guards who walked the perimeter and not the ones posted at the tent.

Twin full moons hampered his attempts to begin his rescue immediately. But they helped give him enough shadow to hide in and enough light to scout out the camp. He noted the rebels had a small fleet of vehicles that they called skiffs. Jackson had said this was closer to the German word for boat, but these vehicles operated on land and in the air and were basically hovercrafts.

Mitchell had been just curious enough, before the rebels attacked, to ask about the skiffs, and he thought he had a pretty good idea how they worked. He knew how they started, at least, and he was pretty sure he could pilot one. He just needed to get to Teal'c and Jackson and get them all into a skiff.

Mitchell had one chance then – the heavy fog that fell every morning in this part of the world. The one that finally came started with small, phantasm-like wisps moving across the ground, rising in slow waves. When it had fully formed, Mitchell actually had a moment of doubt. This one was thick enough to get lost in a few feet from your own door. He wasn't certain how to navigate his way through a camp he'd only seen in the dark. But he was Jackson and Teal'c's only chance for rescue, so he moved in.

Trusting his memory, he crept down to the edge of the camp. He waited until he didn't hear any footsteps from the guard, then started making his way along the ground in what he hoped was the right direction.

(0)

The fog was both his ally and his enemy. It concealed him with amazing efficiency, but forced him to use his ears instead of his eyes. He made more wrong turns than he cared to admit, had more close encounters of the rebel kind that he would have liked, and tripped over more tent pegs than he could count.

The tent that Mitchell sought had only two guards on it and he couldn't figure out why Teal'c hadn't just dealt with them and escaped already. He couldn't shake the feeling that the Jaffa was past due for a dose of tretonin and weakening.

Mitchell knew the rebels were armed with knives. He had discovered this in a very painful and immediate way. They also had guns that fired the way all projectile weapons did but Cam had noticed that they were stingy about firing them. He suspected that ammo was hard to come by. In any case, he didn't plan to give either guard the chance to draw a gun.

He crept up on the guard by the opening flap when he was fairly certain that the other one was at the back of the tent making his rounds. He dove in out of the fog hard into the man's midsection, bringing his left hand up and catching his opponent on the chin. The blow snapped the man's head back and Mitchell drove a punch into his throat to keep him from making a sound. Then Cam grabbed him by the clasp of his cloak and flung him to the ground. Cam heard more than saw the pistol being drawn but he was ready for it. He caught the man's wrist and twisted until the gun came loose. Hoping to just knock him out, Cam tempered the blow he delivered with the butt end of the gun. He struck just behind the left ear and the man dropped down, boneless and soundless.

The other guard was completing his circuit, emerging from the fog like a dark ominous shadow. Instinct and training slid Cam to the right and he blocked a slash of glinting metal with his left arm. Pivoting he slammed a hard kick into the guard's belly, contacted some kind of armor beneath the tunic and realized it had deflected some of the strength in the kick. The man came back at Cam in a cold fury, grunting. The blade flashed again, sliced a layer of fabric and split a few layers off the top of his thigh. Clenching his teeth against the flare of pain, Cam scissored his feet between the man's legs and dumped him unceremoniously on the ground. While his opponent was still dazed, Cam grabbed his cloak and wrapped it around the guard's throat, pulling until he went as limp and boneless as his fellow rebel.

Gasping, Cam let go, hoping he had just choked him out and he wasn't dead. He checked for a pulse and found one, to his great relief. He crouched for another moment to see if the fight had attracted any attention but all he heard through the dense fog was the sounds of the camp starting to wake up.

He didn't have much time. Grabbing the knife that was lying on the ground, he ducked under the flap and peered into the dimly lit tent. There were two figures tied together in the middle of the space, and even though they were bound, it was obvious they were posed in as defensive a posture as they could manage.

"Hey, guys, it's me!" he whispered harshly.

"Mitchell?" Daniel's whisper sounded just slightly incredulous.

"Yes," he said as he went forward.

"Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c whispered and his voice sounded surprisingly hearty.

"Hey guys, how are you doing?" Mitchell asked.

At the same time, voices overlapping, they said, "Daniel Jackson has a broken arm and a head injury," and, "Teal'c's going to need a shot of tretonin within the hour."

No wonder Teal'c hadn't tried to escape yet. Jackson may have been unconscious for most of their captivity. Muttering a curse, Mitchell got their arms free. Daniel hissed in pain as his left arm fell uselessly at his side. Cam tossed Teal'c the single vial of tretonin he always carried, just in case. Then he pulled his bandana out of his back pocket and fashioned a quick sling for Daniel. "I don't even have an aspirin for the pain," he said, regretfully.

In the dim light Daniel seemed to stare at him. "You're kidding, right? I thought you were dead, and here you are rescuing us. I think I can let you off the hook for not bringing a full medkit."

Teal'c helped Mitchell deal with the ropes around their feet and got up in a single move, graceful as a panther in spite of having been tied up for hours. He went to the tent flap and peered out, growling softly, "The fog is to our advantage."

_Yeah_, Mitchell thought, _and Jackson's injuries aren't_. He got under the doctor's right shoulder and helped him stand. "How did your arm get broken?"

"The guards broke it when I wouldn't tell them who we were. My glasses and Teal'c's tattoo and our uniforms kind of gave us away as not being native," Daniel answered with his teeth clenched. "When they threatened to break my other arm, Teal'c told them who we are."

Mitchell did a short double take, looking at the Jaffa with admiration. He wouldn't have let them keep torturing Jackson either.

Teal'c was at the tent opening, peering out into the fog. "Their knowledge of our identity kept us alive, Daniel Jackson."

"How do you figure that?" Mitchell asked.

"They want to trade us for some political prisoners, fellow rebels, "Daniel explained, then abruptly changed the subject. "Where are Jack and Sam?"

_Damn, I knew one of them was going to ask that, _Mitchell thought, sourly. "I don't know," he admitted.

"What?" Daniel asked, sharply.

"I had to make a choice. You can yell at me about coming after you first later."

"They are being held somewhere in the city. I heard the guards talking," Teal's said, with no pleasure in his voice at all. "They were using local holding cells to round up anyone they thought would be useful to them. But then they were driven out of the city and fled to these camps."

"The city is a mess," Cam said, "There's no order; or there wasn't when I left."

Daniel looked horrified. "You mean Jack and Sam may have been imprisoned and abandoned for _days_?"

"Like I said you can yell at me later. Right now we have to make for one of those hovercraft and we have to do it as quietly as possible," Mitchell peered at Jackson and finally figured out what was missing, "How well can you see without your glasses?"

"In this fog I believe our eyesight to all be equal, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said.

Mitchell grunted in acknowledgement. "Can you travel?" Jackson nodded. "Okay," Mitchell said. He transferred Daniel to Teal'c. "Follow me and keep low."

(0)


	90. Chapter 90

Movement at the window brought Sam to her feet before it even roused Jack. She ground her teeth against the frustration of that. She'd never seen Jack sleep through anything, ever. In the dim light of dusk Sam could see that Tine was back, with food and reinforcements in the form of an older teen and a man who appeared to be in his 40s.

The young boy leaned down at the window and said, "Are you still there?"

"Yes," Sam answered.

Tine turned excitedly to his companions. "See?! I told you there were people trapped in here."

The man hunkered down and peered in at Sam and then muttered a string of curses under his breath. Listening to him, Sam remembered Daniel telling them once that not all things were translatable, not even with the Stargate. So Sam assumed that 'may a shoe strike their heads in the bear's forest' was some kind of vicious verbal assault on the people who had imprisoned them. By the time the man ran out of curses Sam felt as if she had been listening to some kind of Tourette's syndrome Mad Lib.

He surprised her then by apologizing and introducing himself. "I am sorry for my language, honored lady," he said, with a slight bow of his head. "I am Gonther. I work at the Presidential complex and I recognize you and your companion. Here, we brought food. Reinhart! Idiot, give the lady the bags."

The teenager, who had been staring goggle-eyed at Sam, seemed to jolt out of a daze. He hastily began pushing slender bags through the bars, working the contents gently to squeeze them through. Sam reached up eagerly to take them.

"Thank you," she said. "Can you get us out of here?"

"The door is secured by code," Gonther answered, as Reinhart pushed two thick blankets through the bars. "But we will seek help. Do you need more than food? Are you injured?"

"My friend is sick, feverish," Sam answered.

Gonther nodded, "I understand. Do you know where your fellow Tau'ri were taken?"

Sam shook her head sadly. "No, we were separated. Can you look for them?"

"We will try. There is an underground resistance forming. The Presidential complex is still in chaos, though we believe most of the rebels have fled the city."

Behind them Jack stirred. "Sam?"

Gonther waved a hand. "You should eat, regain your strength. We will do what we can to free you and find your friends."

Sam nodded, holding the bags tightly in her clenched fists. She couldn't help feeling slightly abandoned again when Tine and his companions vanished, but they had food now, and with it, _hope. _She hadn't even had time to thank them again.

"Sam?" Jack said again. He was struggling to sit up, blinking and weary-looking in the growing dark.

She hurried to his side. "It was Tine. He brought food-" she broke off as her throat closed up, overcome with gratitude and joy.

Sam sat down beside Jack and started pawing through the bags. There were long loaves of bread that she pulled out first. It was the dark, rich, grainy kind she remembered from the breakfast they'd had at the Presidential complex days ago. She broke off a piece, stuffed it in her mouth unhesitatingly, and chewed while she tore a larger piece off and fed it to Jack. He looked slightly bemused at the idea that she was feeding him but then he closed his eyes, sighed and chewed. She tried to make him take another bite before he had swallowed his first one and he said, "Whoa, slow down. I can't get well if I choke to death first."

It sounded so much like her normal, snarky Jack that she laughed and teared up at the same time.

As she continued to eat, her stomach clenched and almost revolted, like it couldn't remember what food was. But then it settled down again and allowed her to eat. She found cheese and dried fruit and something that looked like beef jerky. Sam broke the jerky into smaller bits and fed them to Jack slowly. He chewed just as slowly.

"God _damn_, that's good," he groaned softly at one point.

"Yeah," she said.

They both stopped eating after a few mouthfuls of each thing. Too much too quickly and they would both be sick. Sam got them water again and held Jack's head while he swallowed. He was still hot and shaking but it seemed to her that he looked a little less pale. She gave him a little more bread and more water and then sat gently rubbing his back while he chewed.

Falling in love with her CO had really not been one of her lifetime goals, especially not falling in love with a man who – despite his irreverence and reputation for bending rules – was so obviously and firmly devoted to his military career. Jack had become not just the man she would follow into hell. He had become the man who had willingly gone with her into hell to save her father. He had become the staunchest and most steadfast friend she'd ever had before he had ever become her lover.

"Jack," she said, swallowing a sip of water.

"Yeah?"

"I love you," she said. Even now, even with hope of rescue and several days' worth of food in bags all around them, she needed to be sure he knew. Just in case….

"I love you too," he answered.

Sam smiled a little then and tucked one of the blankets in around him. He settled down and let her do it until he realized she had folded up the other blanket and was trying to put it under his head.

"Uh, no," he said, trying to sit up.

"What?"

"That blanket is yours. You're cold too," he said.

"I'm not sick," Sam said, trying to get him to put his head back on the folded blanket.

"No. All right. Look. Compromise, right? That's what couples do?"

She looked at him skeptically. It occurred to her that they had been acting more like a couple than a colonel and her CO. If he ordered her under the blanket she'd fight him over the edge of insubordination. But he was pulling her down beside him, curling up around her, making room on the folded 'pillow' for both of them and trapping them under the single blanket. Sam was too exhausted, relieved and sated to argue with him.

They were still both badly in need of a bath. Her scalp was itchy and gritty and she would have killed for a toothbrush. But they were safer than they had been in days. Someone knew they were here, someone would bring food and more importantly, someone was looking for the rest of their team.

Sam settled into his arms and closed her eyes.

"Jack?" she asked.

"Mmm?"

"Do we have a Plan A now?"

"Did we have one before?" he asked, groggy.

"Just to survive."

"Still sounds like a plan." He was teetering on the edge of sleeping again.

"Survive and wait?"

"Yes."

"Is there a Plan B?"

Jack snuggled closer and she tried to ignore the heat coming off his body. He was fed but still very ill. Clearly exhausted just from the effort of eating, he said. "We'll work on that if we need one."

(0)


	91. Chapter 91

"No," Daniel said stubbornly, jaw jutted out and eyes ice cold.

Mitchell resisted the urge to sigh and tear at his hair. It's not like this wasn't Jackson's reputation – defying orders and doing what he damned pleased. He really should have had some kind of game plan for dealing with it.

"Jackson–"

"No. I'm not staying here."

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said sharply. "You are injured and in pain. Staying here is the best course of action."

As much as Mitchell appreciated the support from the alien on his team, the look in Jackson's eyes didn't change.

They had escaped from the rebel camp in a hail of gunfire and Mitchell had taken a moment to thank all the deities that the rebels didn't have anti-aircraft firepower. He had flown the skiff – an older model Firesea-class skiff he knew was mostly used by law enforcement. It had a ticklish rear left stabilizer that had made it a bitch to fly, and the concussion missile bays had been empty, much to his frustration. Teal'c and Daniel covered their escape with weapons they had confiscated from the guards Mitchell had overpowered. Even in the adrenaline-heated rush of escape, Mitchell had given Jackson credit for being able to handle an unfamiliar weapon in a combat situation with a broken arm. The man had even more grit than Mitchell had realized.

Mitchell had kept the skiff low in the dense fog, fully expecting to run straight into something and kill them all at some point. He had run a zig-zag course and kept doubling back, using his ears more than his eyes to go over and under their pursuers. At last he had carefully woven the skiff along a path in the woods with the engine almost running silent and laid low until he was sure that the chase had been called off.

They had started by creeping back to the city, guided by the skiff's onboard navigational system and Jackson's ability to read it. When Mitchell felt confident enough of their safety he had lifted the skiff into the air and gunned the engines. It shaved an entire day off his initial hike following the rebels and their captives to the camp. But it still took an entire day with Jackson in pain and no idea where the General and Sam were.

They had ditched the skiff outside the city and stealthily made their way to a small dwelling in the Administrative Housing district, where all the government officials were given a place to live during the time of their service. If Teal'c was curious he said nothing, content to let Mitchell assume the leadership position that was officially his. If Daniel cared he also said nothing, at least until they got to the house and Mitchell pulled a disc out from behind the rain gutter and used it to let them in.

"Mitchell, where the hell are we and how did you know where to find the key?" Daniel had demanded.

"This is the home of the Minister of Transportation." Mitchell was walking around covering windows and securing locks.

"Miranda Ketzeg?"

"Yes."

"How do you know where she lives?" Daniel had dropped down onto a chair, tenderly cradling his arm close to his body.

"Well," Mitchell said, peering carefully out a window before letting the curtain fall back. "We kind of hooked up, you could say. Who do you think taught me to fly a skiff?"

Teal'c frowned and Daniel's jaw dropped. "Did the incident with the Galarans teach you nothing, Colonel Mitchell?" Teal'c asked.

"Yeah," Mitchell answered. He dropped into another chair and finally looked at the knife slash on his thigh. Well that was going to be another impressive scar with a cool story attached; nothing he could do about it right now. "Don't get involved with someone who's been married on a planet where they can fuck with your mind. All right, Miranda isn't here, obviously, but it should be safe enough. This is the plan. Jackson, you stay here–"

And that had started the whole conversation that had Jackson obstinately saying 'no.'

"Look, Jackson," Mitchell said. "Let's just say for the sake of argument that I actually lead this team and I'm responsible for getting it home in one piece. The General made that pretty clear when you all signed back up. My job is to get you all back home and the few times I've forgotten that is when things have gotten monumentally fucked up. Whether you want to admit it or not, you're hurting and you can't even see at the moment. Teal'c and I can travel faster without you."

"What if the Minister comes back?" Daniel asked and Cam felt a moment of hope that Jackson was actually going to let go of this argument and do as he was told.

"She'll know who you are and maybe she'll know where the General and Sam are being held."

Cam wished Jackson would quit glaring like that. Honestly, he had no idea how a look that cold could be so incendiary. "It's not like I want to leave you here. I'd prefer not splitting us up any more than we already are. But you've got this disturbing habit of throwing yourself in front of Death and letting it take you instead. The General warned me about that too, and for that matter so did your wife; and I'm more afraid of her than I am of the General. So can you do me a small favor and not make me be the one who explains why you came back home in pieces?"

Stunningly, Jackson stopped talking. Maybe he was just a little bit scared of his wife too. Cam filed the information away for future use. Most days Cam felt like he needed a translator to help him with his translator. There was a certain amount of satisfaction in stumbling on an answer all by himself.

Jackson's eyes fastened on a spot right over Cam's heart and stayed there, unfocused. It made Cam want to twitch but he didn't move a muscle.

"Fine," Jackson growled at last. "I'll wait here."

Mitchell exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Thank you," he said generously. He stood up, wincing as the dried blood on his torn pants pulled free from his skin. He looked at Teal'c. The Jaffa was the last person in the known galaxy that should be willing to follow a young, green, wet-behind-the-ears Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. Mitchell didn't have the experience or the right to expect Teal'c to do a single thing he said.

They'd find the General and Sam as a team or not at all. "You ready?" Mitchell asked.

The Jaffa's eyebrow twitched and he nodded. "Indeed, Colonel Mitchell."

(0)


	92. Chapter 92

"Do you have a plan, Colonel Mitchell?"

Teal'c's soft voice directly behind him almost made Mitchell jump out of his own skin. Teal'c had melted into the fog moments earlier to check their six and Cam hadn't heard him return. Cam considered himself stealthy – again, thanks to all those weekend hunting trips with his grandpa – but Teal'c moved like the fog itself. It was more than a little unnerving.

Mitchell didn't turn around. He kept his Midwestern drawl low and unconcerned and replied, "Well, I thought we'd start with trying to get our weapons back."

They were out of ammunition for the guns they had taken at the camp, and they were currently living in a world under no kind of law at all. There were militant patrols roaming the streets and an equal number of groups that could be anything from common citizens run amok to bands of rebels still lurking in the city.

When Teal'c didn't answer, Cam looked over his shoulder and into his face. Teal'c's eyebrows were drawn together tightly. "That would mean going into the Presidential complex and breaking into the vault," he said.

"Yes," Cam admitted.

He wasn't sure that he had ever really seen a 'wolfish smile'. But the look Teal'c gave him probably epitomized one. "Lead on," the Jaffa growled.

Cam was happy to comply.

(0)

"Is there a reason we are avoiding the law enforcement patrols, Colonel Mitchell?" Teal'c asked.

"Yep," Cam said, clinging to the brick wall behind him and peering around the corner as a group of uniformed guards jogged past in the lifting fog. "The rebels got into the Presidential complex just a little too easily. They had inside help. Until I know who helped them, and all the details, we avoid everyone." He glanced at Teal'c and saw an expression of calm appreciation on the chiseled face. It was hard for Cam not to feel as if Teal'c was weighing and measuring him at almost every turn. But he also got the feeling that he was passing the tests.

They had made it to the bridge that connected the Presidential Complex to the Administrative Housing and crouched down in the foliage that lined the bank of the river below it.

"How do you feel about getting wet?" Cam asked.

Teal'c started to answer but then shocked the hell out of Cam by rising from his crouch and launching a short distance into another bush. He emerged a moment later holding a young man by the back of his shirt, squeezing his wrist until he dropped the knife in his hand as Teal'c pulled him from the hiding place.

"Wait! Wait!" The man hollered, kicking his feet which were dangling a few feet above the ground. "Colonel Mitchell! I know you! You were part of the Tau'ri delegation. I took messages for you to Minister Ketzeg."

Mitchell peered at the man's face and said, "Lars?"

"Yes! Yes. Please have Mr. Teal'c put me down now, yes?"

"Put him down, Teal'c. He worked at the complex."

Teal'c set the young man on his feet but held onto his shirt as he demanded, "Why are you following us?"

"I wasn't. Not exactly. We don't know who can be trusted but I was sure I recognized you. I am part of a resistance movement. We've been looking everywhere for you. We know where your friends are being held."

"Colonel Carter and General O'Neill?"

"Yes!" Lars said, nodding like a bobble head on a bumpy road.

"Can you take us to them?" Teal'c asked.

"Come with me. I can take you to someone who will guide you. Hurry. We must go before the fog lifts."

Cam glanced at Teal'c and got a nod in return. "At least we can put off getting wet for a while," Cam muttered.

"Indeed," Teal'c replied. They very cautiously slipped into the fog behind Lars.

(0)

Lars took them to a storage warehouse in the Custodial Complex. It was the new home of the Resistance, though Cam wasn't exactly sure what they were resisting. The rebellion possibly? He didn't care. All that mattered was that they appeared to be the Allies of the Tauri. Lars introduced them to Gonther, who embraced them like long lost kin, knocking the wind out of Cam in his enthusiasm and seeming to be blissfully unaware of Teal'c's baleful glare.

"Colonel Mitchell! Mr. Teal'c. Praise the gods. We feared you were all dead."

Gonther handed them off to Tine, with more food for Sam and Jack and instructions to hurry and not be seen. Along the way Tine explained how he had stumbled on Jack and Sam and what they had been doing for them since.

Tine took them to the prison complex just as the noon sun was burning away the last of the fog, but it didn't matter. The place looked deserted. There was a guard tower, unmanned and scarred by weapons fire. The rest of the place was a series of concrete bunkers set into the ground with stairs leading down to metal doors. Each bunker stuck out of the ground only far enough to allow for a single barred window. Cam shivered. They could have searched for days and not found this place.

"We've been bringing them food and medicine," Tine said, "To be honest we had given up hope of finding any more of you. We were working on a plan to free them but we have no access to explosives."

In the whole long explanation Tine had offered, Mitchell heard only one word: medicine. He repeated it to Tine, who informed him, "General O'Neill is very sick." Cam didn't bother looking at Teal'c. He felt the Jaffa go tense beside him.

"They are in there," Tine said, pointing.

Mitchell dropped to his knees beside the window and yelled, "Sam?!"

"Cam!?" A moment later her face appeared below him, staring up in disbelief.

Cameron suddenly couldn't speak. His throat was tight and dry with relief. Sam stared back at him with a wordless expression that said maybe her throat was a little tight and dry too.

Then she looked to her left and cleared her throat enough to say, "Ja–General. Sir." She vanished out of Cameron's line of vision and he could hear her whispering to someone. God damn, how sick _was_ the General? This was Special-Forces–trained, black-ops–commando Jonathan J. O'Neill. Cameron couldn't imagine anything strong enough to knock him off his feet so badly that he would need to be roused.

But then they were both in front of the window and staring up at him. They looked like castaways, especially the General. "General O'Neill," Cam said. Behind him Teal'c said, "O'Neill."

"T?" Jack said.

"Indeed."

"Where's Daniel?"

"We have him in a safe house in the Administrative complex," Mitchell explained quickly.

"Your girlfriend's place?" Jack asked.

Cameron felt his face flame and it didn't help that Teal'c seemed to chuckle a little. "Yes, sir," he admitted.

"Is he all right?" Sam asked, quickly.

"His arm is broken and he hit his head."

Jack grunted. "If it was just his head he'd be fine."

"I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner, sir," Mitchell said. "We were trying."

"No problem," Jack said drily. "It's been like Club Med. Hasn't it, Carter? We'd have sent a postcard but we didn't have a stamp. Did you bring weapons?"

"They're still all locked up in the vault in the Presidential complex." Mitchell turned and looked at Teal'c. "Would your staff weapon blast through these bars?"

"Indeed."

"So we just need to get inside the vault and get that, which was the original plan."

"In our experience, Plan A never works," Sam said.

"Hey," Jack interrupted, "_Our_ plan A worked."

"Our primary plan is 'don't get caught by the bad guys' and that didn't work," Sam reminded him, then hastily added, "sir."

"So any idea how we're going to get inside the complex and then into the vault?" Mitchell asked.

There was a moment of silence before Sam said, "Wait. You said you have Daniel in a house somewhere?"

"Yes," Cam answered.

"Then there should be common cleaning supplies. I can tell you how to make some smoke bombs and a pipe bomb to blow the vault."

"Why not just bring the pipe bomb here and blow the door?" Cam asked.

"No way to control the blast. It would just as likely kill us and bury us in the rubble. Teal'c can control the staff blast."

"I don't know how long this will take," Mitchell said.

"We've got food, water, medicine," Sam said, "We can hold out. Listen, Cam – and Teal'c, you too. I want both of you to remember, and you'll have to tell Daniel because he'll have to read the labels on the cleaning stuff to help you identify it. Now this is what you need…."

(0)

**In the interest of not being flagged by the NSA, I won't be describing how to build any kinds of bombs. **


	93. Chapter 93

By the time they arrived at the Minister's house it was dark. Mitchell had insisted that they take Tine back to the warehouse before making their own stealthy escape to the safe house. He whispered Jackson's name harshly and gave the prearranged password that indicated all was well.

They heard the disc being slipped into the lock and then they stumbled into the darkened house. Well, Mitchell stumbled. Teal'c was still moving with his casual grace but he looked a little gray around the edges.

Mitchell realized that they had all been moving for days and the adrenaline crash was long overdue.

"Did you find them?" Daniel asked, his features etched with concern.

"Yes," Mitchell said, staggering to a chair and collapsing.

"Then where are they?" His tone sounded like a teacher addressing a particularly slow student.

"They're inside a concrete bunker."

"And you _left_ them there?" Daniel's voice rose a little on every word until it was a full octave higher than normal.

"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c said. It was the first time Mitchell had heard any kind of sharpness in the Jaffa's voice. The tone was enough to bring Daniel to an abrupt silence. "They are safe for the time being. They have food, water, medicine, blankets, and we left them with knives so that they are no longer completely unarmed."

"Are you sure?"

"I would not have left them there if I was not sure." Teal'c sounded annoyed.

Daniel's jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. He wasn't looking too good himself, Mitchell thought. Before they had left earlier that day, Teal'c had ripped sheets into strips and secured Jackson's arm to his body. It was immobilized but it still had to hurt like a son of a bitch. He was pale, drawn, eyes unusually sunken. He needed a shave and something about his glasses being gone made him look vulnerable.

"So what's the plan?" Daniel asked, finally.

"We get our weapons back and Teal'c blows the crap out of the place with his staff weapon."

"Our weapons are in the vault."

"Well, Sam gave me some ideas on how to get them out."

"What?"

Briefly, rubbing bleary eyes and fighting exhaustion, Cam outlined what Sam had told him to look for and how to mix it. Daniel stared and then dropped into the chair across from him.

"She's a genius."

Cam shrugged. "This is pretty much high school chemistry, but that doesn't mean she isn't a genius." The last word ended on a jaw-cracking yawn. There was something about knowing they were all safe for the moment...but wait..."Have you seen or heard from Miranda?"

Daniel's jaw twitched again. "No. A couple of patrols went by but no one came to the door." A slow plummet of icy fear started in Mitchell's heart and crawled to the pit of his stomach. "I'm sure she's fine, Mitchell," Daniel said, more kindly, "She's probably just unwilling to come home under the circumstances. You said she lives alone?"

"Yes."

Daniel shrugged, though Cam could tell it was feigned and designed only to make Cam feel better. He wasn't even sure it was something that Daniel really meant. "Then she's with friends somewhere, riding this out."

"Fine," Mitchell said, grumpy and distraught. He scratched his scalp for a moment and rubbed one gritty eye with a knuckle. "How the hell did this all get so fucked up anyway? This should have been a textbook diplomatic mission."

Daniel gave a dismissive scoff. "They don't write textbooks for what we do, Mitchell."

"I am certain that Minister Ketzeg is fine, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said. "We need to focus on our primary objective and then search for her."

It didn't make Cameron happy but there was truth to it. Bitterly he said, "So in the meantime we keep ransacking her house and eating all her food."

"Speaking of which," Daniel got up, grimacing as the tied bandage pulled on his arm, and kicked Cam lightly in the shin. "You need to eat and sleep. I made some sandwiches and put them in the cooler. There's towels and hot water in the bathroom, though there isn't much around here in the way of clothes that will fit any of us. Let Teal'c and me take care of the high school experiments. Chemistry wasn't exactly my favorite but I remember the basics."

"Teal'c should rest too," Mitchell said, climbing to his feet and swaying for a moment.

"I will Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c promised. "Now go."

"Or what?" Cam asked, with a touch of irritated defiance, "You'll hold me down while Jackson force feeds me?" He was joking, really. Honestly he was. He just didn't like being reminded of how little control over his team he actually had. But the sudden feral gleam in Teal'c's eye gave Cam pause. "All right, all right. I'm going."

As he was leaving the room he heard Jackson give a heavy sigh, Then in his very best insecure-but-game voice he said, "Give me the run down, Teal'c. Let's see what we can find."

(0)

Crouched behind a stone wall in the intersection of hallways in the Presidential Palace that constituted the Security Section, Cam felt a moment of panic freeze all his brain cells and the blood in his veins. What if the pipe bomb was too strong and the ceiling caved in on them? Sam had told him there was no real way to control the blast. What if it was just strong enough to blow the door and ignite whatever weaponry was being held on the other side? What if it didn't work at all and just gave them away?

He and Teal'c had gotten as far as the Security Section on stealth alone. The Palace was surprisingly deserted, though obviously still in the hands of the rebels. The few armed rebels guarding the Security Section had been dealt with in a manner that would make the Jaffa and the Sodan proud.

In the time it took Mitchell to freeze up, Teal'c had ignited the pipe bomb the way Carter had told them, shoved it in the door handle of the vault door and then joined Mitchell in crouching behind the wall. The moment Teal'c was in position behind him, a hot surge of adrenaline thawed the frost and sent him bracing for the explosion. His brain went into motion planning action for every scenario he could think of.

The waiting seemed like agony. He trusted Sam's science but it in this case it was imprecise at best. She'd given them metric measurements and Daniel had been able to read the markings on the cups and pitchers in Miranda's kitchen. But they'd had no way of knowing what an Ardean 'kubrit' was in English. They had measured by eye and Mitchell had found himself wishing he had paid as much attention to his mother's attempts to teach him to cook as he had to his grandpa's hunting lessons.

He was looking up to see if it would be possible to access the maintenance panel in the ceiling over their heads if they needed a quick exit when the pipe bomb ignited. The noise was spectacular. Shrapnel rained down on their heads. Dust and chips of stone and metal filled the air.

Teal'c and Mitchell were on their feet and running through the haze when the first alarms began to blare. They had time to locate Teal'c's staff and three of their zats – the only weapons they had brought with them. Wishing for a couple of P90s was fairly futile. He tossed Teal'c a zat and then took off at a dead run for the closest exit. Running behind him, Teal'c employed the first of their smoke bombs.

"Oh, _god, _that stinks!" Mitchell growled.

"Samantha Carter did warn us, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said.

Cam didn't have time to answer. He remembered asking Sam if this was going to smell and she had said yes. The extent of the obnoxious olfactory assault had never been fully explained. Eyes watering, wondering if it was worse to breathe through his nose and smell it or breathe through his mouth and _taste_ it, Cam kept running.

They hadn't had to fire a shot so far. Since the bombs were exploding directly on top of their pursuers, the combined noise, flash, smoke and stench were doing a very effective job of enabling their escape. Random shots blasted by them, some too close for comfort, strafing the walls and causing chunks of stone to fly out of the walls.

They gone about two hundred yards when Mitchell grabbed Teal'c by the back of his jacket and pulled him around a corner.

"Cover us," he said.

While Teal'c fired into the smoke Mitchell slapped at a door panel, trying to remember the code Miranda had used the first night they had used this route to escape the Palace undetected. Miranda had explained that it was a secret passage designed to evacuate the Palace in the event of trouble. Cam hoped this was how Miranda had managed to get to safety the night of the coup.

The door slid open. Mitchell leaped through it and Teal'c followed him, so close he clipped Cam's heels. As soon as they were through the door closed, as if it were on a sensor. A moment later they could hear rapid pounding but the heavy metal held.

They were in a long narrow room with no windows and no doors other than the one they had just come through. Teal'c had been briefed that this was their escape route. But Mitchell could tell that the cage-like environment made the Jaffa nervous. He stood with his feet braced, the muscles in his arms tense as he held the staff weapon on the door.

"Colonel Mitchell," he said impatiently.

"Just a sec," Cam answered.

He was feeling carefully along the blank wall at the far end of the room, trying to find the switch Miranda had shown him, so delicately and deliberately made to look like part of the door. He pressed it when he finally found it, causing an old-fashioned swinging door to appear.

"Teal'c! Let's go!" he hollered.

They plunged through the new opening into a dark, narrow tunnel. Mitchell slapped at a control panel and the door swung shut again, sealing with a decisive click. Red emergency lighting came on automatically.

Mitchell took a moment to inhale and get his pulse under control. It should be easy from here. The tunnel led to a secret bay of anonymous, unmarked skiffs. They could take the skiff through another exit tunnel what emerged into the woods outside of town and from there it would be a short, fast ride to the prison complex.

"Colonel Mitchell?" There was a question in Teal'c's voice but also more impatience.

"Yeah," Cam panted, "Let's go."

Without any further pause, he led the way down the tunnel.

(0)


	94. Chapter 94

Sam was sitting up with her back against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her and Jack lying beside her with his head pillowed in her lap. She was gently stroking his forehead and staring at the window. Beyond the bars the afternoon was preparing to slip into a mist-shrouded night.

She thought if they had to spend one more night in this hellhole she would start losing her mind. Sam pulled the blanket around her shoulders more tightly and then tucked the one covering Jack more closely around him.

"Do you want more to eat?" she asked. "I can get you something, without moving even. The bag is right here."

Jack shook his head. He was looking better and obviously feeling stronger. But he had insisted they both rest. Sam was too keyed up with the idea that they were going to be rescued any minute.

"Water?" she continued. "I can get some. There's still a little juice. Do you want to finish that?"

"Carter, I'm fine," he said, without opening his eyes.

"Are you sure? You still don't look fine. Maybe not less fine than a castaway on a deserted island, but still not all better."

Jack cracked an eye open. "If you're hungry, eat something."

"No. I mean, yes, I would if I wanted something. But no."

After a pause and just before he closed both eyes again, he muttered, "You know you're making less sense than usual, right?"

Sam frowned at him. "Do you want some more pain killer?" She started to reach for the bag.

Jack shifted into a more comfortable position and folded his arms across his chest. "No. Want to be clear-headed."

Sam subsided. "Okay." But she moved again a moment later. "Maybe I will eat something."

"Carter!" Jack growled. She was making him dizzy with all this. "Stop."

"Sorry," she murmured.

"No, go ahead and eat if you want. But _relax_. Please?"

Sam bit her lip as she reached into the bag to pull out some bread and cheese. She had never learned to be good at this – the waiting part. She preferred action. She needed to do something. When she had asked Jack about his ability to shut down and wait he had told her that waiting was doing something. It was preparing for action.

Sam understood on an intellectual level but she had never gotten used to feeling helpless. She tried to stay still, to let Jack rest, chewing quietly.

"They'll come, you know," Jack said, eyes still closed.

"I know," Sam said.

"Teal'c and Daniel have never let us down," Jack went on reassuringly.

"Not once," she agreed.

"Mitchell ever let you down?"

Sam shook her head. Mitchell could be a bit of a wild card, but he wouldn't stop trying to get them out of here. That she knew. She finished the cheese and took a swallow of the fruit juice in the bottle they had been given, leaving a little bit in case Jack wanted some.

"Stop it," he said, again.

"What did I do now?" she cried, baffled.

"Finish the juice. I don't want any."

Sam resisted the urge to growl. He hadn't even opened his eyes. How did he know these things? "You've been sick."

"A swallow of juice won't change that. You've been trying to give me more of the food since Tine started bringing it."

"You need more calories than I do."

"Carter!"

"Fine." She got the bottle and swallowed the rest. "There. Happy now?"

"Deliriously so."

Sam grimaced at him, figuring he could see that through his closed eyelids too.

"We should tell him."

"Tell what to whom?"

"Cam. We should tell him."

"What?"

"About us."

"Are you nuts?"

"We've had to go back to hiding, even in front of Daniel and Teal'c. It feels wrong. Cam is my friend."

"And an officer in the Air Force!" Jack's eyes were open again and he was gazing up at her as if he was seriously worried about her sanity.

"I want to tell him."

"Well we can't – for the same reasons we didn't tell Teal'c and Daniel for so long. We can't ask him to make that kind of choice. If you're his friend then you won't want to do that to him." When she looked miserable Jack sat up and turned to face her. "Look, honey, I know you don't want to keep secrets from any member of your team. It bothered you more than me when Daniel and Teal'c didn't know. But how much do you trust Cam, really?"

Sam frowned at him. Jack was excellent at keeping secrets. It came naturally to him, but not to her.

When she didn't say anything, Jack surrendered a little. "All right. But we can't tell him outright. We have to do just enough for him to figure it out on his own. That way we didn't tell him and there isn't anything we can't deny."

"How are we going to do that?"

"We'll figure something out."

Sam stopped talking. She had gotten a compromise from him and that was all she was likely to get for now. "I just...love you so much."

"I know."

"And we had to hide it for so long."

"I know."

"Even from _each other_."

"Carter, I know."

Jack wasn't angry. He wasn't even impatient. He was probably just tired and sore and sick of being in here.

"All right," Sam conceded. "Fine. Close your eyes and go back to your happy place."

Jack slipped one hand behind her head and brought them close together. "_You're_ my happy place."

Sam touched her lips gently to his. "I know."

(0)


	95. Chapter 95

The sound of something motorized approaching had Sam jumping to her feet and running to the window. Jack stood up with her, one hand against the wall. The shadowy light made him look even more pale and gaunt than he did during the daylight hours.

"It's a skiff," Sam told him.

"Can you tell if it's Mitchell or Teal'c?"

"No, it's too dark. They only have running lights on."

"Then get over here."

They had taken to crouching against the same wall as the window, in the corner farthest from it. Now that they weren't worried about being found, they were worried about being found by the wrong people.

Sam had found it almost impossible to sit still. She had tried as hard as she could for Jack's sake but she was so wired for action it felt like she was giving off sparks. This long horrible portion of her life was about to end, and with it the lack of freedom, the fear for Jack's life. Now they were in the brief interval between being told of rescue and the actual accomplishment of that rescue, and it was impossible to rest.

In a controlled rush of adrenaline, not knowing if this was rescue or more peril, Sam hurried back to the corner where Jack waited and they crouched, hands on the knives they had been given by Mitchell.

The skiff stopped outside their bunker. Sam and Jack held their breath, on edge until they heard the deep familiar rumble that was Teal'c. "O'Neill?"

Their combined relieved sighs were audible. Sam jumped up and went to the window with Jack following closely behind. Teal'c was crouched down, peering into the darkness.

"Did you get the weapons?" Jack asked.

"Yes," Teal'c answered. "You will need to take cover."

"All right, give us a sec," Jack replied.

Sam got the bag of food and they bundled back under the blankets, throwing them up over their heads. As they huddled in close, suddenly Jack took Sam's head between his hands and held her as if she was a prayer for which no words existed.

"You are my rock," he whispered. "You know that. Right?"

Sam trembled and tried not to choke on the feeling that welled up inside her; breathing in the words until they took root inside her soul, tasting them in the air. She nodded, swallowed the dryness causing her throat to ache and whispered back, "And you're mine."

They were prevented from saying anything else when Teal'c asked if they were ready. Jack hollered back for him to light it up. The whine of the staff weapon coming up to full power was all the warning they needed. They knew when the blast was coming without anyone having to yell 'fire in the hole.' Sam covered her ears, pressed close to Jack, felt his head bent over hers and his arms around her, his hands over his own ears.

The noise was horrific. For a moment Sam was certain the bunker was going to cave in on their heads. Had the staff weapon always been so loud, or was it just that it was going off in a small space? They could feel debris hitting the blanket and knew it was chunks of wall and who knew what else.

That fast, it was over. Jack and Sam waited until the noise had stopped, the last shard of concrete had fallen and hit the floor and nothing was still hissing or cracking. As they cautiously crept out of hiding Mitchell called the all clear.

There was a gaping hole where their window had been. Sam could see stars and moons and clean air was rushing in. Teal'c was reaching down for them and Sam pushed the bag of food at him first. They were still in survival mode and Sam couldn't quite imagine leaving behind something that had been their salvation. Then the Jaffa's strong arms were grasping hers and pulling her up to safety.

There was earth beneath her feet and Mitchell was reaching for her. She clung to him for a few heartbeats. He was warm and he smelled like soap, though the cheek pressed against hers was scratchy and rough.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he drawled in a voice thick with emotion.

"Yeah, you too," she said.

She turned and found Jack standing – hanging on Teal'c like a limp piece of cooked pasta, but standing. She smiled at him bravely, hoping he saw it in the shadowed moonlight. Apparently he did, because he winked back at her.

"What's the situation at the Stargate, Colonel?" Jack asked.

"Unknown, sir. We've been on a rescue and recovery mission lately. I assume you'll want us to check that out next? Sir."

"You assume correctly," Jack said.

"In the meantime, "Teal'c said, "we should hurry."

There was no arguing with that. They made their way to the skiff and got into it with some help. Jack collapsed onto the floor and Sam sat down next to him, close but with some appropriate distance between them. They barely had time to get situated before Mitchell gunned the idling engine, lifted them up and they were finally – _finally_ – leaving the place of their misery behind.

(0)


	96. Chapter 96

They had left the skiff at the edge of the woods behind the Administrative Complex, hiding it as best they could. None of them had been willing to attract attention by driving straight to Miranda's house. It wasn't a long walk, or wouldn't have been if they had been able to just keep to the neatly manicured sidewalks and pathways; if Jack hadn't still been weak on his feet and refusing to admit it. They let him set the pace, exchanging concerned looks when they hoped he wasn't looking.

Daniel must have been watching out the window somehow. He yanked the door open and hauled them all inside before Mitchell even had time to knock and give the code. The guy looked shot to hell, because surely watching and waiting was one of the most miserable experiences known to humankind. 'We'll be back as soon as we can' was not a phrase that could be measured, especially not by the person who was waiting, left with all the 'what ifs' of everything that could go wrong while others were taking action.

Daniel got Sam in a one-armed hug that had to hurt his broken arm. He winced but didn't let her go. Mitchell couldn't hear what he was saying but it sounded like Jackson was thanking gods he didn't believe in.

"Are you okay?" Jackson asked, finally.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "The General…"

Daniel let her go and turned to Jack, who was leaning over with both hands on the back of a chair and looked on the verge of collapse.

"Jack?" Daniel said, anxiously. His voice rose a little, the way it always did when he was getting upset.

Whatever it was, Jack shook it off and stood up straighter. He waved a hand as if he could dissolve their concerns out of the air. "I'm fine. Just…long walk after being in a little room for a week."

"Sir-" Sam began.

"Not now, Carter. Some orders to give first. But you go, find the bathroom, get into a hot tub and stay there."

"Sir-"

"Aht!" Jack held up his hand again. "That's the first order."

"Yes, sir," she said, reluctantly.

"Come on, Sam," Daniel said, taking her elbow gently. It seemed to Mitchell that a brief look had flashed between Jack and Daniel just before that. Cam wondered if that was the second order. "You're going to love the bathroom. It's one big tiled room with a soaking tub and two showerheads."

"Oh, _god,_ Daniel," Sam moaned, clearly distracted from whatever she had been going to say to Jack.

After they had left the room, Jack focused on Teal'c and Mitchell. "Get some rest, some food, and then go find out what's happening at the Gate."

"With all due respect, General," Mitchell said, "We can eat in the skiff on the way to the Gate; and we can take turns driving if we need to rest."

Jack had almost no expression on his face as he looked back at them. There were dark circles sinking into the hollows beneath his eyes. His beard was scruffy and he was covered in dried mud. He looked gray and haggard. He looked in no state, whatsoever, to deal with anything significant. He looked for the first time to Mitchell like a guy suddenly burdened by his past.

But his eyes were clear and sharp and he was still the General. So Mitchell held his ground, even if he swallowed a little.

"O'Neill," Teal'c said, "time is of the essence."

There was another communicative look between O'Neill and a member of his former team. Then the General nodded. "All right, pack some food and go. Contact the SGC and advise them of our situation. Have Landry send reinforcements."

"You should first order us to return to you as quickly as possible," Teal'c said.

O'Neill's eyebrow went up infinitesimally and Teal'c went on. "General Landry will surely order us to return. While I would feel comfortable disobeying such an order, it is doubtful that Colonel Mitchell could do so without repercussions."

"And you'll both want to come back here," Jack finished the explanation. "Fine. After you report, return here. Immediately. That's an order. Understood, Colonel?"

"Yes, sir," Mitchell said, coming slightly to attention and resisting the urge to salute.

Daniel appeared back in the main living space. "Sam is on her way to soaking in a tub. You want some help getting cleaned up?"

"Yes," Jack admitted.

"Then come on," Daniel said, with that tone he used that dismissed everything military. "I took advantage of the darkness and went visiting the other houses. I found some clothes I think will fit you."

"You turned into a cat burglar while I was gone?" Jack asked, turning to follow him in the direction of the sound of running water.

"I turned into someone using all the survival skills I was taught by a guy in the Air Force," Daniel answered. "Unless you want to wear some of Minister Ketzeg's things?"

"No," Jack said, sounding grumpy, "I'm sure whatever you found will be fine."

(0)


	97. Chapter 97

"Sam!" Daniel hollered through the closed door. "Can I come in?"

"Yes," she answered, sounding blissfully sleepy.

Daniel was trying not to hover over Jack because he knew how much Jack hated it. But he'd been in every possible situation with Jack over the years and had never quite seen him look this...haunted. He put a hand under Jack's elbow and guided him into the bathroom.

It wasn't a huge room, and the blue tile was a bit overdone and…well, it was everywhere – walls, tub, ceiling, floors, shower. But none of them cared about décor at the moment. Sam was in the tub, covered to her neck in bubbles, sunk down with her head on a vinyl pillow that was attached to the back. Her eyes were closed. Her hair was soaked, dripping and slicked back as if she had dunked under and come up face first.

Daniel had showed her how all the dials and sensors on the wall by the tub worked. He took Jack to the shower and showed him the same thing.

"This one is pink foam that smells like gardenias but it's the only available thing that's like shaving cream. There are disposable razors in this drawer. They're mint green and you're going to need a few of them by the looks of that beard. This sensor is hot water and this one is cold. This thing in the middle regulates the water flow. This is soap. There are washcloths in this drawer."

Jack nodded and started stripping, dropping filthy, stiff clothing on the floor. Even without his glasses Daniel could see the bruises running up and down his back and side – black and green with some purple mottled in. There were reddened sores that seemed to be from lying on a hard floor. He looked thinner to Daniel which was the first inkling he'd had of just how sick Jack must have been.

Jack bent over to unlace his boots and Daniel had to stop himself from reaching to help. He cleared his throat and said, "I'll leave you two alone. Let me know if you need anything."

Sam had opened her eyes and was staring at Jack, biting her lip. She gave Daniel a look that was equal parts worry and gratitude. His return smile was quick and reassuring. He didn't lock the door when he left.

"You save me any hot water?" Jack asked.

"It's a central-community system as far as I know," Sam said, carefully. "It's one of the things we're studying for application on Earth. Since we appear to be the only ones in the community at the moment you should have all you need."

Jack got under a showerhead in her line of sight. As the water cascaded over him he let out a huge sigh. "Oh, _god," _he muttered. Sam understood. The water was utter paradise on her stiff, sore body. She could only imagine what it felt like to Jack.

She kept a close eye on him while she soaked and he shaved. This was more movement and action than he'd taken in a week and she didn't know when the adrenaline rush was going to wear off. When the beard was gone he pulled one of the long rectangular cloths out of the drawer and filled it with a generous amount of soap. He started with his head and face, scratching through his hair with vigor; then his neck, his arms, his chest.

Content that he seemed all right, Sam closed her eyes again and exhaled slowly. There was a million things they still needed to do, but right now it didn't get any better than this. Her skin was turning pink from the heated water and her fingers and toes were wrinkling and she didn't care at all. She ducked down under the water again, stayed for a moment and then came back up again, wiping water from her eyes as she did.

When she looked at Jack again he was standing completely still, one arm braced against the wall and his head hanging down. Sam sat up abruptly. "Jack?"

"Wha –?" He raised his head and looked over his shoulder at her. "It's okay. Just a little..." He waved his hand, splattering water droplets. "You know. Ran out of steam, is all."

Sam got out of the tub with a rush of dripping water. Careful to not slip on the tile floor she got into the shower with him and turned on an additional showerhead. Gently, she took the washcloth out of his hand and touched it against back. "Then just let me," she said.

There was a brief hesitation and then his chest rose and fell in a sigh. "Yeah. Thanks," he whispered, so softly she almost didn't hear him over the noise of the water running.

She ran the washcloth over his broad shoulders and down the column of his proud, stiff spine. It was hard to focus on the task at hand and not the now-familiar body under the washcloth. She was tender over the bruises, but insistent that when she was done there wasn't going to be a speck of dirt on him anywhere. It didn't help her though that the damned suds kept sliding down over his ass and even between his firm cheeks. It wasn't the time to be ogling her lover's ass, though she was pretty sure Jack wouldn't mind. Jack was running on the last bit of energy he possessed just to stay on his feet. But later, after they ate one more time and slept on something soft….

She turned him around and let him lean on her while the water washed away the suds. Sam was angry about how he had been mistreated and desperately wanted to kiss him and fuss over him and hold him, all of which he would hate and ran contrary to her basic nature. But Jack aroused strong and often strange emotions in her. There was no middle ground when it came to her feelings.

So much wanting, so much longing, for this one man. She wanted to make love to him right there in the shower.

Instead she stepped away and got them both towels as he turned off the water.

(0)


	98. Chapter 98

Dressed in clean if borrowed clothes, Jack and Sam followed the delicious smell of hot food to the kitchen. The table was set, even though it was nearly midnight, and Daniel was putting food on the table.

Daniel gave them something that looked like meat pies, though he claimed to have found them frozen and brushed off all attempts to make him admit he had cooked them. Neither Sam nor Jack really cared. It was the first hot meal they'd had in a week and they ate it with abandon. The meat actually did taste like chicken. The vegetables were a mystery but so covered in thick, rich gravy it didn't matter. There were chunks of something starchy that was enough like a potato to satisfy. There were rolls to go with it and a jam spread made from some kind of dark blue fruit. Daniel had brewed them a dark, hot liquid that tasted like chocolate and coffee and cinnamon.

Jack ate two pies and at least four rolls, drank three cups of whatever the drink was and chased all that with some fruit juice. When he couldn't eat any more, he sat back in his chair and fixed Daniel with _that _look.

"Tell me what happened to you and Teal'c and Mitchell."

"Jack, you should sleep."

"I need a report first, Daniel."

There was that locked-eyes battle of wills that had made Sam sigh inwardly for so many years. She poured herself a glass of juice and waited it out.

Jack won. Daniel started talking and this time no one shut him up.

"There isn't much to tell. Teal'c and I were captured. They knocked me out cold and from what I can guess, Teal'c stopped struggling to stay with me. Our guards seemed to have military training. They were fairly efficient." Daniel paused. "They took us to a camp pretty far outside of town but in the opposite direction from the Gate. They broke my arm trying to get us to identify ourselves. Teal'c stopped them from doing any more to me by telling them what they wanted to know.

"From what I could hear they wanted to trade us for some political prisoners. I don't think they realized how much chaos they had caused in the city. Mitchell found us two days later and got us out of there. He said he saw us being captured and followed. He also said he knew the two of you had been taken prisoner but he came after us first."

Daniel spat out the last sentence as if it tasted bad to him. He looked down into his cup as he drank.

"Teal'c needs tretonin, Daniel," Sam said, gently.

"I know. And I'm the civilian!"

"Daniel," Sam changed her tone to chiding. "You can't refuse to join the military and then be mad when someone points out that to us you're the civilian."

"With my eyesight the military wouldn't have me! How is that for irony?"

"All right, that's enough," Jack stood up and swayed slightly on his feet. "What do they have for sleeping arrangements around here?"

Daniel stood up too. "There's a guest room with twin beds across from the bathroom. There are blankets on the beds."

"I'll help you clean up," Sam said.

"I can get this," Daniel said.

"You have one arm," Sam protested. Mitchell and Teal'c had taken the time to let Daniel get showered and then splinted his arm and wrapped it in more stripped sheets. But it was still useless for the moment, held tight against his chest by a sling.

"Yeah, well I'm getting used to it," Daniel shrugged and gave her a smile that was small but genuine. He put his good hand in the middle of her back and pushed her towards the hall leading to the bedroom. "Go."

Grumbling half-heartedly, Sam stumbled after Jack in the direction of a soft bed and warm blankets.

(0)

She woke up thinking that she'd heard the sound of a skiff engine and realized it was a slight roll of thunder in the distance. Relaxing her body back into Jack's arms she waited to see what it would mean. A moment later the sound of rain hitting the roof started with a gentle but insistent patter.

Sam worried her lower lip between her teeth and thought about Teal'c and Mitchell. She should be with them. They were her team. Daniel and Jack were legitimately hurt, but she could have stayed dirty for a few more hours to do her duty by her team and gone with them to the Gate.

What if the rebels were holding the Gate? What if Teal'c and Cam had been captured? Thunder rolled, closer now, a low growl in the growing light of dawn. Sam wriggled away from Jack, which made him tighten his arms and open his eyes a little.

"Where ya going?"

"Bathroom," she said, kissing his cheek. "I'll be right back."

He let her go but Sam waited until she heard him breathing in the rhythm of sleep before she finished getting out of bed. She tucked the covers in around him and leaned over to kiss him on the temple before leaving the room.

She hadn't been kidding about the bathroom. But when she was finished a dim glow from the main living area drew her attention and she went in that direction instead of back to bed. Daniel was there, perched on the arm of a chair by the window, peeking past the curtain he was holding open by inches.

"Oh, hey Sam. I thought you'd sleep longer."

"The thunder woke me. I think it will always sound too much like weapons fire for me to ever sleep through it."

"Hmm," Daniel said. He let the curtain fall back in place. "You hungry? I can start some of that drink, the coffee thing. The locals call it klava. There's also something like sausage patties and flour and stuff. We can make pancakes…."

"Daniel!" She said.

"What?"

"It's okay. I'm worried about Teal'c and Cam too."

Daniel ducked his head and smiled at her again. "Too worried to eat?"

Sam snorted and dropped into a chair. "I don't think I'll ever be too…_anything_ to eat. I mean, we've had to live on short rations and stuff I'd rather not eat. But this time there was just _no food_. At all."

Daniel sat down across from her, leaned back, and shifted until he found a comfortable position resting his splinted arm on his chest. "What the hell happened, Sam? I know he was beaten. I was too. But how did he get so sick?"

Sam shook her head ruefully. "I'm not sure what they intended to do with us. They took us in a skiff to the abandoned prison. Jack-" she broke off and sighed heavily. "Jack couldn't resist being, well, Jack."

"He shot his mouth off didn't he?" Daniel said, shaking his head. It wasn't really a question.

"I think he did it to take their attention off me," Sam said. "It worked a little too well. God, Daniel, I thought they were going to kill him. I don't know how he doesn't have broken ribs. He's made of some pretty tough stuff."

"Physically," Daniel said. "It's always been his heart that's a rebuilt pile of dandelion fluff. But don't tell him I said that."

Sam smiled wistfully. "Wouldn't dare."

"That's all then? They just beat him and then put you both in the cell?"

"At one point they had Jack face down in a huge puddle. I was afraid he'd drown. He must have swallowed some of it and it smelled horrible. Stagnant. Who knows what was in it! It made him violently sick. I've never seen anyone get that sick; and there was nothing I could do for him. We shouldn't have survived, Daniel. The fact that we're here is because of a series of impossible events. We came _this_ close."

"We would never have stopped looking for you," Daniel said, fiercely.

"We were starving to death. I know you wouldn't have stopped looking. I never would doubt that. But time was not on our side and look where we were! How long would it have been before you found us?"

They stared at each other in silence for a moment because Daniel wouldn't argue with the truth and Sam wouldn't keep torturing him with it.

"Are _you _alright?" Daniel asked, finally.

"Yes."

"Really? Jack took his shirt off so he can't lie to me. But I've only seen you from the neck up. They didn't hurt you? In any way?"

"No. A couple of guys showed up and stopped the ones who were beating up Jack, said something about remembering who we were. They left us alone after that, except for throwing us in a cell and then never coming back."

Daniel continued to watch her carefully. But Sam didn't lie to him. She knew better and at last he nodded, satisfied.

"You said something about pancakes?" she said finally.

"I think we can make some. Any chance you remember a recipe?"

"Two cups mix and add water?"

"That's not going to help."

"Come on." Sam stood up. "I'd love to surprise Jack with a huge breakfast. We're a couple of scientists. We should be able to figure out how to make pancakes."

"I'm not that kind of scientist, Sam," Daniel said, standing as well, slowly so he didn't jostle his arm.

"No, but if we find a cookbook you can read it."

"I can do that," Daniel agreed with a grin.

(0)


	99. Chapter 99

Cam was trying very hard not to look at the faces of the men guarding the Star Gate, the _Stern Gatten_ to the people of Arde. There was a small encampment in the forest clearing, perhaps two dozen men and a few tents, with campfires and an air of boredom that Cam hoped they could exploit.

But they were close enough for the guards to be human to Cam. He much preferred his enemies faceless and at a distance, or shooting at him first, so that he at least was on the defense. These were hard faces, cold faces, dirty, hungry, some hopeful, some tired. The ones at the foot of the Gate had the puffed-up faux-dangerous posture of people who believed the weapons they carried made them more important than they were. But Cam suspected they knew how to use them. They certainly knew how to carry them

Still, the camp looked efficiently set up. The men were neither rowdy nor drunk. Their voices were quiet.

Cam preferred knowing what he was up against as far as training. He leaned back in the shadows and looked at Teal'c.

"So what do you think? They've got weapons and they outnumber us about twelve to one."

Teal'c's teeth flashed in the moonlight. "It should be no problem then."

"Well, it's not going to be a cakewalk. We've got four zats and your staff."

"As well as Jaffa and Sodan training and the element of surprise," Teal's added. There was a long pause during which Mitchell appeared to be considering their options. "Unless you would like to return to the city and get Colonel Carter."

"Sam?" Cam sounded surprised. "Not sure what difference one person would make."

"Samantha Carter was often the sole reason for our survival," Teal'c mused.

Cam snorted. He knew that. He'd read the reports. Hell, he'd survived a few missions during Desert Storm because of Sam Carter. But….

"She's been through enough hell. We can do this," Cam said, waving a dismissive hand. He figured that Teal'c knew about eight different ways to kill a man with his bare hands, a few more than the Sodan had taught Mitchell. "But look, maybe we don't know everything that's going on here and why these people decided a rebel overthrow of their government was the answer. Let's try not to kill anyone. Okay?"

"I too would like some answers," Teal'c agreed.

Cameron sighed, sat up again and looked back at the camp. "All right, then. How do you want to-"

He broke off when he saw a figure come out of the largest tent. At first he didn't think he could possibly be seeing correctly. It was impossible. It just could _not_ be. The world around him collapsed into tunnel vision.

There was nothing else but the figure at the end of that tunnel.

"Colonel Mitchell-"

Cam held up his hand for silence and Teal'c complied. Thank god the Jaffa knew how to be silent. Cam could barely hear anyway, over the sudden ringing in his ears.

He watched the figure move among the men, talking, waiting, and clearly making the rounds for the sake of morale. The respect Cam saw in those once tired, cold and hungry faces was obvious.

But he still…he couldn't quite believe….

"Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said, again, but more quietly. "Is that not-"

Cam sank back with a sigh and cut him off. "Yeah, it is. That's her. That's Miranda Ketzeg."

(0)

For the second time in as many days Cameron found himself sneaking through an enemy camp, alone. There had been an argument about that. He had insisted on it. He had decided that it would make sense to confront Miranda by himself, leaving Teal'c to come to the rescue if he screwed up and got caught.

Working with Teal'c was just as exhilarating and terrifying as Cam had thought it would be. The Jaffa pushed him, defied him, demanded more from him with intense silence than his military training instructors at the Air Force Academy. Hell, Teal'c would have been a great physical therapist at the hospital. One stern look and Cam would have gotten up and walked with no further encouragement necessary.

So the argument had been mostly one-sided verbally, with Cam explaining his intentions and his reasoning and Teal'c scowling at him. Cam was still reeling a little from having won.

He left Teal'c with three of the four zats and crept through the shadows, avoided flickering firelight and groups of men sitting and talking. He'd always been stealthy and he had a natural sense of direction. But the direct route to Miranda's tent was out of the question.

He got there after a series of close calls and time spent crouched in darkness, wishing for his black ops gear instead of his olive drab and holding his breath. He hunkered down at the back of the tent, between Miranda's and the one behind it, and listened.

He could hear her talking to someone and after a moment of listening he determined that she was in there alone with one man. He could do that. With the element of surprise on his side, one man should be no problem. He didn't want to use the zat unless he had no choice. It was a convenient weapon but it wasn't silent and it would light up the tent like a beacon if fired.

Hearing Miranda's voice confirmed for Cam that it was indeed her. All the way to the tent he had harbored some lingering hope that he'd been wrong. All right, he hadn't known her for more than two days before the rebel coup. But he'd known her _very _well that last day before all hell had broken loose.

Cam had been unusually lonely since Vala had disappeared. It was not a feeling he liked or was used to. It had driven him to make a nearly fatal mistake once already. Miranda had offered him distraction and comfort.

Comfort he had relished. Comfort that had cost him.

His jaw tightened and he felt a sharp sting in his gut at the idea that she was behind this somehow. That she had been the one who had ordered them captured, tortured; Sam and the General almost lost forever because of men under her command.

His military training and experience and his time with the Sodan had taught Cam that Yoda was right: there was no time for anger when action was required. Cam dismissed those feelings so he could act.

Because his every instinct demanded that he _do _something, achieve something to make the suffering and heroism of his teammates worth it. He stilled his breathing and pulse, listened until he knew the man inside the tent was just on the other side, right next to him, separated by only a thin piece of canvas, and then he moved.

Cam rolled under the tent and came up hard in front of the rebel soldier. He drove a fist into the man's midsection as he slammed his head into the man's chin. When his opponent bent over with a shocked exhalation of breath, Cam rolled again and hit the ground as he sent a two-footed kick at the back of the man's knees. The soldier went down on his back like a tree going over. Cam had just enough time to get out of the way. Then he was straddled the soldier's chest and landed a punch to his jaw that knocked him out.

He got up instantly and turned to point the zat at Miranda, who was staring, too shocked to scream. One sound from her and his cover would have been blown. But Miranda was standing there with her jaw dropped and her gray eyes wide.

_It was her eyes_, Cam thought, _too much like Vala's. Should have gone slower_.

"Hello, Miranda," he said, in a dangerous drawl. "I think we need to talk."


	100. Chapter 100

"Cameron," Miranda managed to gasp.

"Yeah," Cam agreed. "Good to see you again too. You wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?"

"You know all I have to do is scream?" she said quietly.

"You know all I have to do is pull the trigger and duck back out of here, hide in the shadows until the commotion dies down. No one in here would be conscious to tell anyone what happened." He kept his eyes on her face, ruthless in his own way. He could use charm when he wanted. That came naturally. The steely stare he was learning from Teal'c. "You have two seconds to sit down and then tell me what is going on."

For the barest instant Miranda glared back at him. Then she seemed to sigh, as if she had just lost an argument with herself. She didn't sit. She just started talking.

"You don't understand the situation here. All your government ever sees is what ours wants you to see. Our so-called _President_ Brandt is nothing but a dictator, elected over and over in rigged elections in which he has no opponents. There are countless people being held in prisons for no reason other than speaking out against him. There are families starving and the unemployment rate is skyrocketing," she paused, and then did sigh out loud. "There's too much to explain here, in this way. But we've been planning this since before the treaty with Earth. I was the insider from the beginning but there was never a way to tell you. I wanted to but in the short time we were together I wasn't sure how much to trust you."

"You know that you endangered the lives of SG1? That's not something anyone back home is going to take lightly."

The smile she gave him was cold and terrible. "Do you know that your government refuses to negotiate with hostage-takers? Even when we told them we had _all_ of you?"

"Dr. Jackson's arm is broken," Cam snapped, losing what little patience he'd had with the situation. "Colonel Carter and General O'Neill were imprisoned and _abandoned._ They would have starved to death. Was _that _all part of the plan from the beginning too?"

"No," Miranda said, almost too loudly. Cam lifted the zat and she took a breath to steady herself. "No. I never intended that. The orders were to bring all of you here. So that we could trade you for assistance in our takeover of the government. Dr. Jackson and Teal'c were taken by a group that decided to act outside of my orders. Their 'leader' has had more than half his family imprisoned. I was furious when I found out they had been taken outside the city. But I didn't have the manpower to go after them. General O'Neill and Colonel Carter…I didn't know what happened to them. I knew they had been captured and then were placed somewhere for later retraction because their group was being pursued. Then we lost all contact with them. It was reported to me that Dr. Jackson and Teal'c managed to escape. I'm glad Colonel Carter and General O'Neill are also safe. I'm sorry about all of that. It was never our intention."

"No. Your plan was to use us all as hostages. I'm not sure that's any better, because as you found out our government doesn't negotiate with kidnappers."

They glared at each other for a moment. Miranda blinked first. "Then what do we do now?"

"First, you take me out there and order every last one of them to keep their damned hands off me. Then you let me dial the Gate and talk to General Landry. Then you do whatever the General says. Is all that clear?"

"That's pretty big talk from one guy with one weapon," she answered.

"You've had us trapped here for a week. I can promise you that there is a rescue being planned right now. I may be one guy with one weapon. But rest assured there are going to be a whole lot of guys – and gals – coming through that Gate any moment with a whole lot of firepower. If I were you, I wouldn't want to be this close when they start coming through. Those two guys you got pacing up and down on the ramp are going to be the first casualties. I can stop that, if you let me. I get a feeling you don't really want any more people to die here."

"Earth still won't help us overthrow the dictatorship," Miranda said, sounding sad and defeated.

"Do you know where President Brandt is?"

"No. He must have had a different escape route, one I was never told about. We have the other members of the staff but not him."

"Look, Miranda," Cameron said, "Let's just mop up as much of this mess as we can and then see what happens. At the moment there doesn't seem to be a government on Arde. But if you surrender and let Earth retrieve all of its people, it will go a long way to having your point of view listened to."

She only hesitated a moment longer. Then she nodded. "Wait here-"

"Oh hell no," Cam said. "I'm not letting you out of my sight, and you should know I'm not here alone."

She smirked. "Of course not. The vaunted SG1 is out there in the woods somewhere, I'm sure."

It wasn't, but Cam chose not to disillusion her. SG1 had a reputation even off-world. There wasn't any reason to tarnish it.

"With our weapons, by the way," he said cheerfully.

"You got them out of the vault in the _palace_?" Miranda was incredulous.

"Hey," Cam said. "We're SG1."

And, _damn,_ that felt good to say.

(0)


	101. Chapter 101

Sam was putting the pancakes on a plate and Daniel was staring down into the cooler trying to find something to put on them when he realized that Sam had stopped moving. He stood up and turned around, fast enough to cause a twinge of pain to shiver up his arm. She was standing with her arms braced on the counter and he could see even without his glasses that she was shaking.

"Sam?" When she didn't answer, Daniel walked over and stood deliberately in her personal space, looming over her protectively. "Sam. Hey. It's all right."

He wasn't trying to tell her what happened was all right, or even that everything was going to be all right now. He was trying to tell her that falling apart was all right. Sam apparently got the message because she turned suddenly and put her arm around his waist as if she couldn't stay on her feet alone for another second. Face buried in his borrowed sweater, she took a shuddering breath and started to cry.

Since he only had one arm he put it around her and started swaying gently. "It's all right. You did great. You did everything you could and more."

It was a shot in the dark because he hadn't really gotten to talk to her about what happened. But he was a smart guy; he could figure it out. He tried to imagine being trapped like that with Jillian, feverish and probably dying while she watched.

It was hard enough to imagine it being Jack and Sam….

Daniel knew that this was Sam's meltdown reaction. He'd seen her do it before. She was strong, dependable. He knew exactly what she would do in any combat situation. But the adrenaline crash afterwards could be spectacular. When Sam had done everything that had been asked of her and more, she cried.

Normally she crashed into Jack, which was fine because Jack was the physical one, the tactile one. Jack was the one whose arms had held all of them at one time or another. He knew how to deal with rage and tears. He knew how to wait it out with patience and silence. Jack knew how to offer comfort without judgment and make further tears unnecessary.

Daniel was undone by crying women. Tears wrenched a part of his soul loose and demanded action. He'd do _anything_ to fix it; _anything _to make the tears stop. Since he suspected that even Sam didn't know exactly why she was crying there wasn't anything he could do but hold her with one arm and murmur platitudes into her ear. Just so she would know it was okay with him if she cried and she could do it as long as she wanted and he'd wait even if his soul was bleeding from it.

It didn't help that Daniel felt as if he was looking straight into the passion Sam felt for Jack. He knew these kinds of tears. He'd held Jillian enough – and knew she had been held in turn by other people who had tried to comfort her when he was Ascended – to recognize the fear.

"Love is risk," Daniel whispered into her ear. "We both knew that going in. So did Jack."

"I know," Sam said, taking another long shuddering breath as she regained control. She leaned back, wiping her eyes with her fingertips. Daniel looked down into her eyes and got that gut-wrenching feeling of helplessness again. _Damn_. The wet spiky eyelashes, the tearstains on her cheeks and red-rimmed eyes….

It did help Daniel a little to know that every time Sam cried, she came out the other side of it stronger. Tougher. Every tear forged the steel inside Samantha Carter into a sharper and more finely-honed weapon.

Sam stood up a little straighter, though she still had her hands on Daniel's waist as if she needed the help to stay on her feet. "It would help," she said, "if being with him wasn't so…so…_freaking_ spectacular. I mean, I always thought it would be good, possibly even great. But it's…it's so much _more_."

Daniel couldn't help but grin a little. "You sound like that makes you mad."

"It _does_," Sam growled, with a trace of her old feistiness.

"You don't have to tell me," Daniel said, his grin growing bigger. "The man's made me mad every time he opens his mouth for nine years."

"Do you know what he told me?" Sam said. She let go of Daniel and raked her fingers through her messy hair. "He said he wants this to just be about what _I_ want right now. Like I'm not worried at all about what _he _might want!"

Daniel tried to look grave and sympathetic. "Selfish bastard," he intoned sagely.

Sam looked up at him sharply, prepared to defend Jack to the death against _anyone, _even his best friend. She caught the glint of humor in the back of his eyes and stopped. A moment later a grin tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"He's impossible," she said.

"You won't get an argument from me," Daniel agreed.

A smile eased the tension from her tear-streaked face. She put her hands on his waist again and pressed her forehead into his chest, careful of his splinted arm.

"Thanks, Daniel," she said.

"Anytime," he answered, though his torn-up soul and pounding heart desperately hoped she decided to crash on Jack next time.

By the time Jack joined them in the kitchen, Sam had splashed water on her face and combed her hair and was looking as stunningly beautiful as always – even in borrowed clothes and without makeup of any kind.

At least, Jack thought so. Daniel could tell by the way he looked at Sam. Like she was _his_ and his alone. All his. They would have to court-martial him-hell, they would have to _kill_ him to make Jack let her go now.

Sam was standing at the table pouring juice into glasses when Jack came up behind her and put his arms around her, molding his body to hers and leaning over to nuzzle into her neck and shoulder.

"You said you were coming back to bed," he said, accusingly.

"I checked on you. You were asleep. I didn't want to disturb you," Sam answered, twisting her head a little to look at him.

"You don't disturb me," Jack answered. Then he added, "Maybe a little. But in a good way."

They smiled at each other in a sweetly shy way and kissed in a perfectly respectable public display of affection. Sam's eyes were soft and misty as she turned and they got wrapped up together in an easy, comfortable embrace. Jack closed his eyes and didn't even try to hide how happy he was. Sam was blushing like a rose but looked in no hurry to stop holding onto Jack.

Daniel thought his head might explode. They were so good together, Jack and Sam. Like Sam had said, so freaking spectacular, and right then Daniel missed his wife so badly he wanted to scream. He tried to be the strong one in their marriage, always reassuring and steady. But right now all he wanted was that kind of loving embrace. All he wanted was to have Jillian to lean on and let her take care of him.

It felt stupid and weak and he couldn't help it. He'd crawl across the galaxy on his hands and knees to have Jillian right now and not feel the least humiliated by it. Heart breaking, he put the jam he'd found in the cooler on the table and stood gripping the back of a chair, white-knuckled. He'd left her with their six month-old son and Jack's seven-year-old to go on a two-day diplomatic mission to a world that had been their ally for five years.

That had been a week ago. Jillian must be frantic and doing her best to remain calm – for Jett's sake if not for the sake of their son JD.

Jack pulled Daniel out of his thoughts by asking, "Any word from Teal'c and Mitchell?"

"Not yet," Daniel answered, regretfully. "I'm sure they're fine. It's just getting light out." He stood up and forced a smile. "Let's eat. We made pancakes. There isn't anything like maple syrup but I found some other stuff that should be fine."

"Pancakes?" Jack said, then in his best Mr. Burns voice drawled, "Eeeeexcellent."

(0)


	102. Chapter 102

The sound of footsteps on the porch alerted them first. Before they could take cover or even react a fist banged on the door and Mitchell's voice yelled the password, "Jackson! SG1 rocks."

"What the hell?" Jack asked as Daniel made for the door.

A moment later Mitchell was walking through it, followed – shockingly – by Jillian and the rest of SG8. Teal'c brought up the rear, locking and securing the door. Jillian made straight for Daniel while Colonel Mallory, Lt. Colonel Davidson and Major Lawrence filed in and gave General O'Neill a cursory salute.

"I see you contacted the SGC," Jack said to Mitchell.

"Yes, sir. I brought back SG8 in the skiff. SG's 3 and 6 are guarding the Gate. SG's 12, 13 and 19 are on their way here on foot."

Jack's eyes narrowed. "There's no way Landry got approval for that kind of firepower this quickly."

"No, sir. He didn't," Gerald Mallory said. "It seems the Head of Homeworld Security was unavailable to give his approval."

Jack snorted. "And the IOA?"

"I think we're still waiting for word from them, sir."

Jack nodded. There might be hell to pay over that but he'd deal with it later. He glanced over at Daniel. He had Jillian in a one-armed death grip, eyes closed, and Jillian was clearly dealing with a desperately stunned man, because her feet were off the floor. She didn't seem to notice, not with her arms wrapped around Daniel's neck like that, clinging to him as if she was trying to crawl inside his skin. He was making wordless soothing noises until he found his voice.

"You're not mad?" Daniel asked softly.

"No," his wife answered, shaking her head. "There wasn't any reason to think there would be trouble on Arde. You didn't do anything. But – _god_, Daniel."

Jack didn't think he would ever understand how Jillian managed to forgive Daniel over and over for the crap he got into. Though, of course, it seemed the entire team forgave him again and again. Daniel was Murphy's Law in BDUs and for some reason they all accepted it. Daniel's well-being – mental, emotional and physical – was always a concern. The guy would deny it but Daniel Jackson was still the heart of the SGC. As long as husband and wife were doing all right, Daniel would be fine and Jack could move on to other things – like getting them the hell off this planet.

But first– "Jillian?"

She looked over at him. "Jett's fine," she said, anticipating him. "He's with my dad at the moment. I told him you were fine. We'd just lost communication with the planet and now it was back up and I was coming to help bring you back. When I spoke to him he was making ice cream sundaes and talking about going to the park to ride the go-carts." She glanced back at Daniel. "He's got JD too, obviously."

Jack's expression softened, thinking of Jett home and having fun. "Good. He'll like that. Thank you."

Jillian nodded and went back to holding onto Daniel with all her strength and attention.

Jack found a chair and sat down in what he hoped was a commanding way and not the _Christ I can't stay on my feet another second _way that he was feeling. Sam came to stand beside him in a way that he hoped was the conditioned response of someone who had been his 21C for too long and not _I'll catch you if you fall over._ He strongly suspected it was the latter. He wanted to hold her, cling to her the way Jillian was clinging to Daniel. They'd get down time after all this and Jack was going to do everything he could to get her to the cabin in Minnesota, or maybe a safe house somewhere. He didn't care. He just wanted her somewhere with him, _alone._

"You got some kind of report for me, Mitchell?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Cameron said immediately, "and it's a doozy."

Jack didn't sigh. Not out loud anyway. But sometimes the weight of his rank sat on him too heavily. "Then let's have it."

(0)

When Mitchell finally finished there was complete silence in the room. Daniel had sunk down onto the couch, stunned. Sam was perched on the arm of Jack's chair as if she couldn't quite believe it either.

"Miranda?" Jack said. "Miranda Ketzig? The Minister of _Transportation?"_

"Yes, sir," Mitchell said.

"Was the leader of a coup against the government," Jack went on.

"Yes, sir."

"And now she and most of her major underlings are in the custody of SG12?"

"And 13 and 19, sir. They're calling for the rebels to lay down their arms, as per their orders from General Landry. SG8 is under orders to bring all of us home."

Jack sat for another moment, absorbing all that before finally saying, "Well I guess I don't have to feel guilty about eating her food and getting her towels dirty. If SG8 is supposed to get us home then by all means let's assist them in every way possible."

It was all he could do not to reach for Sam's hand to help him stand. He got on his feet unaided. Daniel had untangled from Jillian and was putting on the glasses she had brought for him, settling them on his face, scrunching his nose to get them seated the way he liked. He blinked a few times as if he had forgotten what the world looked like with sharp edges. Among all of them, Daniel was still the most injured, so Jack waited until Daniel's eyes fell on him, then raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

_Ready to go?_

Daniel nodded.

"Get your things, kids. We're getting out of here," General Jack O'Neill said.

(0)


	103. Chapter 103

Jack flung the door of the safe-house open and grabbed Sam in a frenzied hug that had her feet dangling off the floor, just because he could now and he had seen Daniel do that with Jillian and he wanted to do it with Sam. It wasn't like he wanted to throw her on the sofa and ravish her or anything, just because everything about the last few weeks had him feeling possessive and primal. Sam had her arms around his neck and one leg wrapped around his hip. So he didn't think she minded at all.

But he needed to kiss her because the holding was nice but the kissing was what made it clear that she was his. He leaned in and she rewarded him by taking his face between her hands. His mouth was bruising on hers but she didn't back off. Her lips were always soft and moist and full. But they were also firm, mobile and yielding and _jeezus, _what a _rush_ it was to have her this way.

_Mine._ The thought was immediate and demanding. _Mine. Hot, sexy, sensual, brilliant and exclusively, completely mine._

Sam was gasping in shock when they parted, literally shaking.

"Jack! _Shit – oh, shi…" _she stopped to breathe and then laughed."Put me down, you idiot. We look like the cover of a Nicholas Sparks novel!"

"A what?" Jack asked, a little dazed himself. He set her, trembling, back on her feet only to have her cling to him for balance.

"A Nichola – _mmmph!"_

She couldn't answer because his mouth was covering hers again. Jack thrust deep and Sam staggered again, arms curving up over his shoulders seeking balance as he dove relentlessly in her warm, silky softness. In a single smooth motion he had them turned around and was taking her down onto the couch beneath him in a tangle of limbs.

Her body was warm and supple, fitting to his. Her heart was racing. Jack heard the breath catch in her throat for a moment when he thoughtlessly ground his hips against hers and she felt how hard he was already. She went quite still for a moment, her breathing shallow. Jack smoothed his hands over her face and down her side, gently and soothing as he continued the urgent passionate kiss. He couldn't help it. He'd had too many years of having to quash this reaction to her and he didn't have to anymore and she hadn't been the only one who'd been afraid he was going to die in that concrete hell. To never have her again, like this, to leave her alone….

"Sam," he groaned helplessly. "_Samantha…." _The words shuddered out of him.

She lurched up against him so suddenly it knocked the wind out of him, all quiet gone. Jack groaned again as she wrapped one long, lovely leg around him. The other slipped over to let her brace her foot against the floor. Jack fell into the space she opened for him and got immediately harder, two layers of denim notwithstanding. Her mouth devoured his, thrusting back. Her back arched into a bow, lifting her hips to his. For all of Samantha Carter's high-minded feminism and military competence, there was something about him going all primal and alpha-male that turned her on – or maybe it was just knowing what she did to him.

Losing it. He was losing it now. Jack fought himself to stillness, resisting the urge to just _take_ in the face of so much willingness. He panted for a moment, regaining some control. His fingers were gentle in her hair. His kiss relaxed, became softer and sweeter. "Ah, Sam," he whispered, "_God."_

Sam looked up at him. Her face was desire-flushed. Her eyes were dilated to black with only the thinnest ring of aquamarine. Jack frowned at her as if puzzled, still stroking her hair with one hand while the other supported the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades. "Who's Nicholas Sparks?"

She laughed, short and sweet. "An author. Of romance novels, generally."

He pretended to consider that as he ignored the easy, rolling way she was moving against him. It wasn't even remotely subtle, though it was controlled. Her fingers were clenched in his shoulder blades.

"So that's good, right? It was romantic?" he murmured as he kissed and suckled at her throat.

She laughed again and his pulse pounded in response. "Very romantic," she acknowledged with mock seriousness.

"Good," Jack whispered it like a caress as he dropped his head forward and coaxed her into another kiss. She opened again and his tongue slid sweetly home. Sam arched up to meet him, eager. Her fingers slid up and down his back, over his hips as they kissed deeply, slow and sweet and lingering. She was starting to look completely dazed with desire.

Jack clamped down on his urgent need again. He'd waited to recover his strength. He'd waited to finish dealing with the aftermath of the coup on Arde and he'd waited through the interminable meetings with the IOA about it. (His only satisfaction had been in the final meeting, the one he had made Daniel sit in on. Daniel's frosty anger had gone a long way to intimidating them into grumbling acquiescence. Jack still had no idea what Daniel had said to the Chinese rep in precise and chilly Mandarin, but Jack had a feeling he was never going to see that guy again.)

Jack had waited until his schedule and Sam's finally synced up and now they were together and she was willing and eager in his arms.

So after all that waiting, he wasn't doing her on the couch like some horny teenager, even if that was exactly how she made him feel. Sam deserved romance, finesse, ambience – which was why there were candles and a chilled bottle of wine in the bedroom. He was feeling every inch (literally) the alpha male here, but it wasn't the time to be the 'general in a china shop.'

Sam jerked, startled, and grabbed for him instinctively when Jack suddenly lifted up and away from her. But she followed willingly and her eyes lit with pleasure when Jack held out his hand and asked hopefully, "Bed?"

"Oh yes," she said, taking his hand and letting him pull her up.

Jack slipped his arm around her waist and guided her to the stairs.

"My stuff is in the car still," she protested weakly.

"I'll get it for you later," Jack promised.

When it looked like she was going to argue Jack pulled her around and kissed her, moving his hand to cup her breast and stroke with his thumb over the cotton t-shirt. _Damn. _It didn't feel like she had anything on under it. His plan to distract her became an epic fail as they both glazed over for a moment.

Jack swallowed the rush of desire. He wanted to make her quivery and helpless and it wasn't going to help at all if he did that to himself first. He took her hand again and guided her up the stairs.

(0)


	104. Chapter 104

They got to the bedroom, still clinging, kissing in a slow sweet way that made their footsteps stumble. Jack nudged the bedroom door open and guided her gently inside. The room was lovely, breathtakingly so. It had a paneled vaulted ceiling with skylights showing the stars, and wide open beams. There was a hanging chandelier glowing dimly. The walls were a muted beige, set with high windows covered in sheer white curtains. There were a dozen white candles lit and a dozen more waiting to be lit, indicating to Sam that Jack had been in the process of creating a romantic mood when he'd heard her car. There was an ice bucket with a bottle of red rosé and two crystal glasses. The bed was partially turned down, covered in white and beige sheets and a fluffy down comforter, looking soft and warm and inviting, and – _oh my god,_ was that two of her favorite Ghirardelli squares lying on one of the pillows?

Sam had been pretty sure downstairs that she was about to be stripped and summarily taken, and she had been really pretty okay with that. It had been ages, and ever since actually getting to _have_ Jack she lived in an almost-perpetual state of arousal whenever she was with him. It wasn't just that she had lived an almost celibate existence; it was different with Jack. It was the perfect intersection of wanting sex and wanting the person. It had become a persistent, sweet, aching need; a distraction like no other.

It wasn't like she wasn't surrounded daily by men oozing testosterone and sex appeal.

But all she had ever been able to see was Jack.

A too-warm flush spread over Sam, fueled by the closeness of Jack's body and the clearly, beautifully romantic room. A hunger pulled at her insides.

But Jack had gone to a lot of effort and suddenly, she wanted to do that too. She turned in his arms and looked up into his eyes. "I need my stuff from the car."

He frowned, holding her loosely. "I thought we talked about that?"

"No, I – I changed my mind. There's something I got for you."

"Well, you can give it to me later. "

"No, it's something…"she paused, took a breath. "It's something for me to wear."

Jack's eyebrows almost arched off his forehead. "To wear, hmm?"

Sam could feel her face flush hotly, but her eyes danced and she tried not to smile. She wiggled out of Jack's arms and turned him back to the stairs. "I'll finish the candles. The keys are in my purse and I dropped that by the front door when you picked me up. I need my duffle bag. The one I use as a carry-on when we fly commercial?"

"I know the one," Jack said, dragging his feet as she propelled him out of the room with a hand in the middle of his back.

"Then go," she said. "It will be worth it. I promise."

Grumbling under his breath Jack headed back down the steps. As he hit the ground floor and went to the door he yelled upstairs, "You know those jeans are already worth it!" She laughed but wasn't sure he heard it. "And that t-shirt is to _die_ for!"

By the time he got back Sam had lit the rest of the candles, fluffed the pillows and resisted eating even one of the chocolates. She grabbed the duffle out of Jack's hand, smiled at him, and all but ran into the bathroom before she could change her mind.

They'd been at the Broadmoor shopping when Jillian had gone into the lingerie store. An hour later she had emerged with three new pieces of lingerie that Sam was pretty sure would melt Daniel's glasses. But Jill had also talked her into two items that Sam wasn't sure she'd actually have the nerve to wear. There was nothing particularly risqué about them. Both were really just nightgowns. But they were sexier than what she usually wore. Jack had never seen her in anything similar.

She took a breath and pulled them both out of her duffle. They were neatly rolled in tissue paper to prevent wrinkles. One was royal blue with black lace overlaying her breasts and then going down the front to the edge the hem. It was short and made her legs go on for miles. The other was slightly more demure – longer, almost knee length, silky with no lace and thin straps. It was a kaleidoscope of color in blues and black and Jillian had promised Sam that it made her look luminous, highlighting her blond hair by contrasting it and bringing out all the best in her eyes.

Sam knew she could be sexy and she had enjoyed flaunting it before. But now it was important. This time it meant something. She knew Jack wanted her. That had been pretty obvious downstairs. She just wanted him to want her the same way she wanted him – all of him.

She picked the kaleidoscope one, thinking the other one was more daring, sexier and she could save that for tomorrow night. She found a washcloth and freshened up, dug her brush out of the duffel and tousled her hair into something she hoped looked like she had just gotten out of bed. Some quick eyeshadow and a pale shade of lipstick later Sam surveyed as much of herself as she could in the small mirror and then took a deep breath.

Hoping she didn't look as nervous and suddenly uncertain as she felt, Sam opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the room.

Jack was waiting for her by the ice bucket, pouring something the color of wild strawberries into the two glasses. He had changed out of his jeans and t-shirt into a loose-fitting pair of dark tan flannel pajama bottoms with thin white pinstripes. From the waist up he was wearing nothing but his virility. The pants were slung low over his hips, as if they were going to fall off at any moment. In fact, they appeared as if they were being held up by nothing but a two-alarm erection that went quickly to five alarms as Jack's eyes swept over her in appreciation.

"Well," he said in a shaky voice, "you certainly know how to pick out a gift."

Sam blushed again and hid her hand in the flowing folds of the nightgown to hide how they were trembling. "You should see the other one," she said, trying for something that sounded nonchalant, as if she dressed like this all the time.

"The other one?" Jack repeated. Was it possible for something to go six alarm?

She smiled, feeling more confident. Unless he hired a skywriter, Jack couldn't possibly make it more obvious how much he wanted her.

As for what she was feeling…_damn, _her General was smoking hot and he wanted her. He _wanted_ her. Feeling more confident, Sam joined him and took the wine he offered her. It was her favorite rosé, with two ice cubes, just the way she liked it.

"I thought you swore you didn't like wine," she said, taking a sip and letting it roll around on her tongue for a moment. Excellent.

"It's not that I don't like it," he protested.

"But it's not beer," she guessed.

Jack took a sip from his wine glass, swallowed and then put the glass down. He reached for her hand and pulled her close. "It's not a beer kind of night," he said. "It's about you and how I feel about you. It's about you saving my life, again. It's about me wanting to make sure you know what you mean to me."

Sam relaxed into his embrace, drank a little more wine, then set it down to curl her arms up under his and around his body, her hands digging into his shoulder blades. There was so _much_ of Jack. Not many men could make her feel small and delicate, but compared to his blatant masculinity she couldn't help it.

His fingers snaked down her side and found the edge of her nightgown, easing it up a little and then slipping underneath to stroke her inner thigh. Sam let go of his shoulder blades to run her hands down his chest. Jack was extraordinary, lightly, richly furred and with skin smoother than should be legal. He carried his share of physical scars, but they were only more arousing to her. She traced the sleek lines of muscle on his chest and arms and ran her thumb over the fine lines of scar tissue. Jack was built. There was no question of it, though it took getting him out of the baggy layers he preferred wearing to find that out. He was broad-shouldered with a deep chest and powerful arms, the long lines of him perfectly proportioned. The heat was starting to come off him in waves as Sam's hands stroked over him with mindless pleasure.

She dropped her head to trail kisses over his chest, firm skin over heavy bone and muscle. His shallow breathing quickened. Unable to resist finding out what would happen Sam flicked her tongue over his nipple. Jack sucked in his breath sharply and then groaned. A slightly triumphant purr came up from her throat but in the next second Jack had tilted her head back up to clamp his mouth over hers aggressively.

Sam kissed back willingly, letting him devour her. Her hand wandered lower and coasted over soft flannel, curved over his hips, bypassed the rigid temptation she wanted beyond reason and glided down his thigh. It was a hard touch, firm, insistent and she could feel him shake with anticipation as she stroked back up.

Jack moved forward, thrusting with a subtle but aching rhythm against her.

Sam wiggled away and reached for the chilled wine. She took a swallow to calm her suddenly quivering body. Jack didn't let her go far. He curled his body over, still pressed tight to her hips. He nuzzled into her hair.

"Bed?" His whisper was low and sultry. He wanted to claim her, take her, and Sam knew it. She could hear it in his voice. "There's chocolate."

Sam's laugh was low and sultry. "Like you need chocolate to get me into bed."

Jack ran kisses from her ear to her throat, his tongue teasing as he did. Sam was assaulted by memories – that mouth on her breasts, teasing her, flowing down the length of her spine because he had an obsession with her back, tracing slow shapes against the most sensitive spot on her body until she was bucking against it, sobbing for relief, making her see stars.

Sam shivered and let him back her towards the bed.

(0)


	105. Chapter 105

Jack thought Sam looked a little surprised when he left her to retrieve the wine glasses. He had backed her up to the bed and let her knees hit it so that she sat down on the sheets, just where he had turned back the comforter and blanket. Then he bent over and pressed his mouth to hers in a sweet, sensual kiss. Sam's fingers had come up on either side of his face, into his hair, across his temple and down his cheekbones. Jack kept kissing her but he was barely breathing, stunned by the sensation of her fingers on his skin, her touch exploratory and fascinated. Jack had gotten lost in her, in the feel of her wet, warm mouth and the slow dance of their tongues and the taste of wine on both of them.

When she reached up to tangle fingers in his hair and urgently pull him forward, Jack had stood up, gently disengaging so that he could go get their wine glasses. As tempting as it was to lean into the pull and lower his weight on her, ease her legs apart with an insistent nudge of his knee, he had plans for the evening that included slow seduction. Sam could try to stop him but he was determined.

"I'll be back," he promised.

Sam bit her lip and then nodded and smiled, eyes brilliant - wide and wanting, accepting. His eyes swept over her one more time and she blushed the color of their wine. Jack couldn't help but smile back, reassuringly. He returned with the wineglasses, placed his on the nightstand and handed the other one to her. She took it and balanced it delicately while scooting back into the nest of pillows.

Jack unwrapped one of the chocolates and held it out. But when she reached for it he pulled it back, eyes holding hers. She questioned him with a look, watching carefully as he offered it again. This time she kept her hand still and just opened her mouth, eyes gleaming. He let her bite off a corner of it, warm chocolate and caramel dripping into her mouth. Sam's tongue slipped out to catch some of it, swiping over Jack's fingers as she did. Jack went completely still, mesmerized, unable to move even to offer her the rest of the square of chocolate. Her smile was hot and triumphant as she reached to take his wrist, holding it in place so she could eat the rest of the chocolate, first biting it and then licking, finally pulling his long blunt fingers into her mouth so she could suck the sweetness from them.

"Sam," Jack groaned, leaning forward and barely catching his weight on the headboard in time. Sam knew, she _knew, _what she did to him, just how _fucking_ badly he wanted her. Since the night he had broken down her door, he'd had no shame when it came to Sam, no pride at all. She was incandescently beautiful and never more so than when her power over him was worn on the outside instead of carefully tamed and controlled. He was going to _die _if they didn't….

Sam let go of his hand and ducked out from under him to put her wineglass on her nightstand. "Can we make love now?" She asked, in her soft, bedroom voice, the velvet sound he only heard when they were in bed together, the auditory caress that drove him mad.

"Yes," Jack said roughly.

Sam came up under his chest, looking up with blazing desire and adoration. Jack leaned over to kiss her again. His mouth ravaged hers for a moment before dropping to her throat. One hand found its way into her hair, pulling her head back gently. The other hand began kneading her breast through the slippery silk, teasing her until she was writhing, wantonly arching up against him with her hands running over his chest and sides.

It was almost impossible to wait but not if he got _this_, got Sam wanting him like this, trying to pull him down to lie beside him, press up against her.

"Jack," she sighed, straining up to meet him.

Jack gathered her into his arms and then brought them both down to lie flat on the bed. Their legs disappeared under covers, tangled together. Jack loved having Sam like this – the whole long length of her stretched out against him, soft and firm at the same time, soft satiny skin and feminine curves, breasts full and heavy against his chest. He pressed closer with a kind of desperation and the first hard glide of his cock against her hip made him shudder.

He had never allowed himself to dream about making love to Sam, but even now he couldn't imagine that the dream could ever have been as amazing at the reality. He thrust hard against her again, groaning. Sam murmured something he didn't catch and eased back from him a little, gentling him because he was going too fast again. Jack swallowed, shuddered again and slowed. When he relaxed a bit Sam _flowed_ back against him, fitting like water and sighing in pleasure. He looked into her passion-drowned eyes

"Tell me what you want," Jack urged.

"This," Sam answered. She reached without any preamble for his erection, grasping him through the soft flannel. Jack gasped in shock, threw his head back on the pillow and panted for a moment. _Now_ who was moving too fast? His pulse pounded as she stroked him through the fabric, not hard or deliberately enough to actually work up to anything definite. Just enough to drive him absolutely and completely _fucking _out of his _mind._ A warm wet spot appeared on the fabric under her teasing thumb and they both groaned. Her fingers moved, found the waistband of the pajamas and pushed down. He assisted, kicking them off eagerly while finding whatever place on her body his mouth could worship.

"God, Jack, look at you," she purred and it seemed to Jack that there was a kind of reverent wonder in her voice. She started to sit up, to lift her nightgown over her head but Jack stopped her.

"Wait," he said hopefully. "It looks amazing on you and it feels even better."

Who knew he liked the feeling of fabric so much? It wasn't something he had ever explored before. She smiled a little shyly and snuggled back down.

"No more sneak attacks," he said, hoping it didn't sound like an order while also hoping she took it as one. Her shy smile turned into a smug grin. "Hold still."

He orders her to do it but then doesn't make it easy. He could study her forever and not get tired of it. The swirls of color on the nightgown hinted at what lay beneath as Jack mapped her with his hands and eyes. He'd assumed she was wearing at least a thong under the sweet silk but running his hand all the way up her long, sexy legs he found nothing but naked delicious Sam. His fingers began a slow exploration, being exquisitely gentle. He mouthed the tip of her breast through the fabric until it was wet and clinging to her. Sam groaned, writhed.

"Hold still," Jack said again.

"_Jack," _Sam pleaded.

She wasn't used to this, he realized. She was used to them coming together swiftly, like two raging rivers merging into one. He could have taken her on the couch and she would have responded just as passionately. Holding out for something this long was slow torture for both of them.

He was going to make love to her, flushed and lovely and wearing this sinfully erotic bit of silk. The need was unstoppable now. But he'd be damned if he'd rush this time. His eyes stared down into hers and really, _nothing _should be that blue. Even with her pupils dilated nearly to black, the blue ring of her iris was startling.

Still brushing her sensitive places with his fingers he stroked her hair with the other hand. Sam smiled and curved her arms up over his back again. Jack eased over so that his whole weight had her pinned to the bed. Sam's breath came in tiny moans as he rocked against her. She urged him to touch and to kiss, letting him know what felt good, what left her dazed and breathless.

They had been together for a _year. _How was it possible he didn't already _know_ exactly what it was she liked? Had they really been doing this by rote? Jack thought they had been falling into each other more and more every time they were together. Deeper every time.

Maybe not. He took a breath and began kissing her breasts with tenderness but no mercy until she was whimpering and her head was thrashing. She shivered when he used his teeth and tongue to worry the skin under her ear. Her abs were exquisitely sensitive it seemed, especially from her navel down. She gasped and shook when his fingers entered her and found exactly the right, sweet spot, brushing over and over until they were breathing in time, each filled with the same urgent ache.

Sam clung to him, groaning as she arched up to his teasing fingers. "_Jack, please,"_ she whispered, fixing him with wide, drowned eyes.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, shifting until she was under him.

Her legs came up to wrap around his hips. Jack surged forward, crying out as he entered and she surrendered and they flowed together like water. They were both stunned for a moment by the hot, sweetly yielding glide. Jack stopped himself from falling forward by catching his weight on his elbows. His arms were around her in a strangle hold and he tried to relax. Sam pushed up to kiss him just before he began to move.

They fell into a steady pace, not desperate but insistent, quivering and clinging and seeing stars. He thrust down and forward and caught her return movement. Her hands were crazy on him, running down his sides, clutching his glutes, nails digging into his back. Jack rocked and pushed into her yearning body, wild beneath him as he braced his feet to drive them both over the edge.

Sam spoke and it startled him because he was beyond coherence.

"_Fuck me, Jack."_

It could have been vulgar but it wasn't. It was sensual, breathless with love and passion. It sounded as if she was already satisfied, had already gotten something she wanted. It sounded as if she had inhaled their love and breathed out her most secret desire.

Jack shook and fought for air. Stars floated in front of his eyes as he began to feel the tell-tale fine tremors shiver through her. Sam's hands gripped his back as she arched violently, head thrown back. She went intensely still for the space of a heartbeat and then convulsed and shook, quaking; falling with such passion that it dragged every atom in Jack's body with her.

He froze, caught in the grip of a climax like a maelstrom. Jaw clenched, coming explosively, pulsing into the core of her, intensely lost in her. It was raw and real and he was as much hers as she was his in that moment. His gasps were continuous as he came in long waves. He thought he might be saying her name, wanting her to know that she was loved. It was hard to tell over the ringing in his ears.

When he came to some kind of awareness he realized he was collapsed almost completely on top of her. Groaning he rolled onto his side, taking her with him to cradle her in his arms.

Sam was boneless and shuddering in his embrace, head on his shoulder and one hand over his heart. Her climaxes always seemed endless, leaving her wracked and shivering for long, long moments afterwards. He kissed her and held her and said things she probably didn't hear, just for the sake of saying them. She finally stretched and shivered one last time, snuggling close and sighing in deep contentment.

Jack dropped his head back against the pillows. His body was still throbbing, aching sweetly in the aftermath, as if he had been drained – willingly - of his soul. He loved her. Whatever came of all of this in the end that was the only thing that should matter – that _would_ matter. He loved her and only her, deeply, absolutely and with all his heart.

And he always would.

(0)


	106. Chapter 106

**Several Months Later, at Daniel's house….**

**(0)**

Get-togethers at Jackson's house had become commonplace. It was hard for them to leave the house with a baby, but Daniel had served too long with Jack O'Neill and he knew the value of letting the team have downtime together. So his house had become the default hangout in O'Neill's absence.

This particular Saturday was different from the usual gathering. Instead of a potluck, Jillian and Daniel had cooked an actual dinner – steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, salad and baby carrots, an exquisite wine, a choice of beers, and apple pie with ice cream for dessert. It was a celebration of having survived the last few months, having returned safely from Arde (where a new government had been established following the President's resignation, and a new treaty signed that should keep the naquadah flowing), rescuing and retrieving the stolen Stargates from Ba'al, and most recently, avoiding being eaten by carnivorous bugs at the Gamma site.

Mitchell had been eagerly anticitpating the dinner for a week, ever since being invited. It reminded him of the Sunday-afternoon family dinners back home and, god, how he missed those. Even the knowledge that the General was going to be in attendance hadn't deterred his enthusiasm. He was in too much awe of General O'Neill most of the time. This time he vowed to relax and just try to chill. He'd proven himself with SG-1 and he hadn't gotten any of them killed. So far, so good.

So far the day had not failed to delight.

Jillian had hors d'oeuvres out on the breakfast bar – grapes dipped in caramel and crushed pecans, and crackers with cheese and ham on top. There was a bowl of shrimp on ice with tartar and cocktail sauce in bowls beside it. The wine was already opened but Cam opted for the Sam Adams Boston Lager that he knew Jackson bought just for him. It was one of those things that made Cam feel like he belonged now. These were his new brothers- and sisters-in-arms and they made sure there were little things – like having the right beer – that made him feel a part of it.

Cam had finished the first bottle and was starting on the second, bemusedly watching Sam rocking Daniel's delighted six month-old son in the chair by the fireplace (because 'maternal' wasn't a word he associated with Sam, but she was _so_ good with that baby), when there was a knock on the door.

"That's Jack," Daniel said.

Mitchell came to attention and turned. The door was already opening and the General was walking in before Daniel could get to it. Teal'c came in from the deck where he had been monitoring the grill. Cam watched the greetings with laser-focused attention. He didn't get to see them all in one place very often, and hadn't seen them since Arde; and had seen the General only once before in any kind of casual setting, unless you counted Mitchell's hospital room.

The greetings were over-the-top affectionate, in Mitchell's opinion, the kind of affection that was usually a farewell after a lot of beer with caffeine chasers. Daniel got a quick, fierce hug; Teal'c a slap on the shoulder with one hand as they clasped forearms. Jillian got a gentle one armed embrace and a kiss on the cheek as shoved a bottle of wine into Daniel's hand.

When O'Neill turned to the occupants of the living room, Cam started to salute but Jack cut him off while walking with purpose towards Sam.

"At ease, Mitchell, it's just dinner," the General said.

"Yes, sir," Cam responded.

He was just starting to feel relaxed when his keen observer's eye was struck by the way the General greeted Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter. Sam stood up out of the rocker and shifted baby JD to her hip in one smooth, practiced motion. She timed it so that she was standing just as Jack was nearly on top of her. The hug they exchanged didn't look friendly. It looked downright domestic, especially with the baby sitting on Sam's hip as if he belonged to them somehow and not to Daniel and Jillian. Jack even bent his head so that his face was in her hair for a moment just before he let go. He didn't step back as Cam expected him to. He reached for his namesake – Jonathan Daniel Jackson – taking the baby and grinning goofily into JD's face just before transferring him to his own hip. JD gurgled happily.

"Good _god,_ you get bigger every time I see you," Jack said, patting the small back with a hand that suddenly looked huge. "Daniel! What are you feeding this kid?"

From the kitchen, wrestling with the corkscrew and another bottle of wine, Daniel called back, "Don't look at me. _I'm_ not the one who feeds him."

"Daniel!" Jillian chided gently.

"Did you get Jett settled okay?" Sam asked Jack – a perfectly logical question, but one no one else had asked. Sam's voice was worried, anxious. Mitchell was struck again by how domestic the scene was, as if they all shared Jett but Sam and Jack shared him just a little bit more.

Jett was on Edora for a visit. It was the reason Jack was in Colorado Springs and, ostensibly, the reason for the dinner at Jackson's house, a chance for them all to be together and relax. Yeah, they were all really glad not to have been killed on Arde, or on board Baal's ship, or at the Gamma site…but a potluck would have been good enough to celebrate that. Hell, a good rollicking First Thursday would have covered it.

"Yep," Jack answered. "They were glad to see him, even if it's just for a few days."

Jack moved to sit down on the couch with the baby on his lap and Sam went to get him a beer. Mitchell continued to keep a weather eye on the General. It was impossible not to. The man was a General, _the_ General as far as Mitchell was concerned, and Cam was too immersed in the military not to be aware of a man with that much power. The more he watched the more he observed something strange seemed to be going on, something he had never been aware of before. What was even stranger was that no one else seemed to notice anything at all.

It started with Sam getting Jack a beer from the fridge as if she did it all the time; and not one of Cam's Samuel Adams. She brought him a heavy stout Cam had never seen in Jackson's fridge before and then sat down so close to him on the couch their knees were touching. Then they played with JD for a while (and watching them both cooing over a baby was just one of the stranger things Cam had seen in his life), until JD started to fuss and Jillian came to take him into the nursery, where presumably she was going to feed him whatever it was that was making him grow so big.

As one unit and with no spoken signal that Cam heard, Jack and Sam got up and went to sit at the breakfast bar. Mitchell got up and sauntered into the kitchen so he could watch them some more. The first thing that happened was that Jack dished up a plate of shrimp for Sam and then, as she ate them, proceeded to snag the discarded shrimp tails. He cracked the remaining shells off and ate what was left, smearing them in the cocktail sauce on her plate. Sam appeared not to mind. She even pushed some of them closer to Jack and didn't miss a beat in her conversation with Daniel and Teal'c.

"So, do you think the Chinese representative will ever go through the Stargate again?" Sam asked.

"I don't think she'll ever leave China again," Daniel said.

"Indeed," Teal's agreed. "Nor do I think we will ever have to deal with the French representative again."

"With any luck," Daniel groused.

"With any _real_ luck, we'll never have to deal with Woolsey again," Sam said, shaking her head and pushing a pile of discarded shrimp tails in Jack's direction.

"I wouldn't count on that," Jack said.

While Cam was helping Daniel set the table – mentally thanking his Grandma for the lessons in where forks and knives went – O'Neill poured a glass of wine for Sam and put ice in it, without being asked or instructed. Cam's 'strange' meter chimed again. It was a chilled rosé wine, but still….

It was even odder when they finally sat down to dinner. Jillian returned, having fed her son and put him down to sleep. Daniel helped her get the food ready for the table and they moved together around the kitchen like a well-oiled machine.

But so did Jack and Sam. It wasn't odd that they knew where everything in the kitchen was. That was expected; they'd all eaten here a lot. What was strange was that Jack and Sam functioned together just as Daniel and Jillian did. They _smiled_ at each other, which really shouldn't be that odd, but something in the _way_ they smiled at each other was _just_ a little different than the way they looked at everyone else.

It was odd that when they sat down to eat, it was just assumed that Jack would sit next to Sam. Of course it helped that Jack had already put his beer and Sam's refreshed glass of wine (with more ice) at two plates right next to each other. Jackson and Jillian sat at opposite ends with Teal'c and Mitchell on the other side from Jack and Sam.

Then things just got odder. It was odd that Sam would cut about a quarter of her steak off and slide it onto O'Neill's plate. It was odd that Jack would reach for the Ranch dressing and put it in front of Sam before getting the Catalina for himself. Sam used the salt and gave the shaker to Jack and neither of them so much as glanced at the other. Throughout the meal, Sam would move Jack's beer bottle and replace it with his water glass and Jack would drink out of whatever happened to be in front of his left hand at the moment, without comment. Sam gave Jack the steak sauce but never used it herself.

And Sam…Cameron had never seen her look so…_happy. _

Now, Mitchell understood that this team had served together for almost a decade, and Jackson and O'Neill went back even further than that. Cam knew firsthand how a squadron became a family, how they took care of each other and learned to anticipate each other's needs and preferences without even thinking about it. But he'd eaten a lot of meals with this team and he'd never seen anyone mess with someone else's food or drink, even if they knew what to do. He suspected that if he tried to get some of Sam's steak he'd wind up with a fork in the back of his hand. Sam was sitting right next to Jackson and she wasn't moving _his_ wine glass all over the place. Daniel had asked for the steak sauce and gotten it passed and it was probable that Jillian would have just given it to him if she had been sitting closer. Just like Sam had given it to Jack.

In the course of his lifetime and his career, Mitchell had seen the same kind of oblivious cooperation between men, between women, between men and women...and there was something just a little too familiar about this.

In fact, there was something a lot familiar about this. He hadn't got such a strong 'couple' vibe off anyone since his grandparents when he was growing up. They'd been married and running a farm together for forty years, and even after growing up in a whole family full of role models of faithful, loving relationships, Mitchell had looked at his grandparents and thought, _Man, I hope I have something half that solid someday._

There was something about the way Sam leaned towards Jack when Teal'c related an anecdote from one of their earlier mission and they all laughed. There was something about the way they were sitting a little closer together than anyone else at the table. There was something about the way they moved, smoothly synchronized without even looking at each other; and a _huge_ something about the _way_ they looked at each other when they did.

All the SG-1 team members finished each other's sentences. Hell, he'd been doing it himself for a couple of months now and hadn't even realized it at first. But with Sam and Jack it didn't seem like some group-mind, team thing. It was like they were the left and right sides of the same brain.

It wasn't like the weird thing O'Neill did with Jackson, that still left Cam with a headache most of the time. O'Neill would start a sentence and Jackson would finish it to mean exactly the opposite of what O'Neill had clearly intended to say, and O'Neill would turn right around and do it back until they were griping at each other using nothing but their first names.

Sam and Jack's thoughts synced up perfectly, one supplying the words the other was groping for.

They had a brief moment of disagreement that was settled in strings of undecipherable dependent clauses, and then an entire conversation that consisted of nothing but the word "what", deep eye contact and the word "Carter." Mitchell had seen O'Neill do that with Jackson too, but this was nothing like the arguments between them. Those arguments always seemed like a fire getting ready to spark, antagonism tempered by mutual respect and long-standing friendship.

This – what the General and Sam were doing – was more like two people finding a pothole in the road they were traveling, stopping to fix it, and not moving on until they were sure it was fixed good and solid.

It was uncanny. It was...it was unnerving and it was unexpected….

It was freaking the shit out of him.

It was also...well, absolutely beautiful.

Add in the body language and the eye-conversation and Sam's eye-shining happiness, the General's relaxed casualness, the 'Grandma and Grandpa' vibe, and Mitchell had to file it all firmly in the deepest corner of his brain under the heading '_the military never gets even a hint of this.'_

He spent the rest of the meal talking to Teal'c, charming Jillian and regaling them all with tales about Sam in the Academy and on their first tour together in Iraq. He didn't go so far as to seriously embarrass her and he took it graciously when she gave back as good as she got. He told the story of bringing her home for Christmas the year before they left for Iraq and how she had passed the "Crazy Aunt Edna" test with flying colors. Aunt Edna had adored Sam before the first hour of the visit was up.

When Jack's arm wound up casually draped over the back of Sam's chair, after he had pushed away his plate of apple pie crumbs, Mitchell decided just not to notice that at all.

Then they were clearing the table and Jillian went to check on the baby, who could be heard fussing over their intercom system. When the dishes were piled up in the kitchen, Daniel ordered everyone downstairs to pick a movie or start a video game and Sam challenged everyone to a game of Mario Kart. Jack went, and so did Teal'c, but when Mitchell offered to hang around and help with the dishes, Jackson didn't argue.

They scraped and rinsed in comfortable silence for a little bit and then Jackson said, quite unexpectedly,

"You have no idea what just happened, do you?"

"What?" Cam said, caught off-guard. "We had dinner, swapped some stories." But he was getting the blue-eyed stare of interrogation from Jackson so he asked, "What did I miss?"

Daniel continued to lock eyes with Cam. They had been told before that they looked enough alike to be brothers, something even Cam had to admit. But Cam didn't think he could get his eyes to be quite as penetratingly, unnervingly blue as Daniel's were at the moment. Cam was almost grateful for the glasses. They acted as a kind of shield.

"What?" he said again. "What did I miss?"

Shrewdly, Daniel said, "You didn't miss anything. That's the point."

Cam continued to look into Daniel's eyes because he didn't back down easily. But then he saw it and he saw that Daniel knew he had 'gotten' it.

Sam and Jack didn't act like that around people they didn't trust. They only did it around family.

"They really are?" Cam prompted.

Daniel nodded.

"Together," Cam finished, needing the verbal confirmation that this was really what they were discussing.

"Yes," Daniel said. "For over a year now."

"Then they did this on purpose?"

Now Daniel shrugged and turned back to the dishes. "Who knows? Maybe they let down their guard unconsciously because that's what they do here. But that just means they already trust you. I mean, I know Sam trusts you already. So it was just Jack who had to come around. They might have done it deliberately to see what you would do. They didn't do anything overt really, nothing they couldn't deny. Either way, you did exactly what you were supposed to. You noticed, you were surprised, you didn't act on it. You didn't say anything. You filed the information and you moved on." Daniel looked at him again, pointedly. "Right?"

Cam swallowed. They were inviting him into the whole family. That much he knew. This was the BIG fucking family secret and they were trusting him with it. But if he betrayed that trust, they'd push him off a cliff and wave to him as he fell. Cam knew he was looking into the eyes of the man who protected his 'family' at all costs; the man his own wife admitted could be a 'ruthless bastard.'

"Right," he agreed quickly. _Jeezus, _here he was a decorated, combat-seasoned officer in the US Air Force and the way this…_scientist_ was looking at him had Cam quaking in his boots.

Daniel's mouth quirked a smile and then he continued vigorously scrubbing at the cutting board. "Good."

Cam breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Later when they all went downstairs, the General found his way over to Mitchell and challenged him to be the fourth Mario Kart. Cam's competitive nature kicked in and he won the first three rounds.

It earned him a slap on the back from O'Neill and a hearty, "Congratulations."

But when Cam looked into the General's dark, expressive eyes he saw that O'Neill knew what Cam knew and the General was okay with it. He wasn't congratulating Cam on kicking butt at Mario Kart.

He was welcoming him into the family.

(0)


	107. Chapter 107

**This will be the last chapter in the Arde story arc. More romantic fluff but I can't help it. It took a long time to get them here.**

**(0)**

Sam woke up in the now-familiar bed in the tiny bedroom at the cabin and had a very brief moment of disoriented panic. She was alone and she couldn't process where Jack was. But sitting up, she found him standing by the window. He had opened it and she could smell the fresh pine-scented air coming in. The faint moonlight gleamed on the outline of a muscled arm and the firm shape of his back and shoulders – a silver glimmer that highlighted his hair and the strength of his body, certain and careless in its masculinity.

Of course he sensed the moment she was awake and came back to bed immediately. He slipped between the sheets to cradle her in his arms, and Sam sighed contentedly. It had been raining earlier but she could hear that it had stopped. She looked out the window and saw the stars, gazing at them as if she was floating in a place of safety and peace. One bright, constant white light drew her attention.

"That must be Jupiter," she said. "It's visible now and that's the right direction."

Jack turned to look over his shoulder and then settled down again. "Yep," he said in a sleepy drawl.

"Jupiter takes eleven years, three hundred and thirteen days, thirty five minutes and four seconds to revolve around the sun," Sam went on conversationally. "I was almost eleven when I was studying the planets, so I always remembered that."

Jack leaned back to look down into her eyes. "You were studying the planets when you were ten? No wait, never mind. I almost forgot who I was talking to."

Sam laughed a little. "My mother introduced me to astronomy when I was about nine. Before that I thought the sky was like a spangled blanket over the earth. After she began telling me about the planets and shooting stars and the galaxies…after that it was like I could just get lost in that huge infinity whenever I wanted."

"You've almost gotten lost out there for real," Jack said, "too many times."

Sam sat up. Jack's hand rode the movement, his arm gliding down her back, until it came to rest on her hip. His fingers looked strong and dark and gentle on her fair skin.

"I still take comfort in the infinity," she admitted.

"In the perfection?" Jack guessed.

"In the indifference," Sam replied. "The stars never cared about the Goa'uld or the Replicators and they don't care now about the Ori. The caring…that's up to us, to humanity. For all the vastness, for all the glory and beauty out there, the humanity still comes from us."

Jack's palm stroked gently up and down her back, memorizing her. When he didn't say anything she turned to look down at him. "Did you start looking at the stars when you were boy?"

"Out here I did, when my dad or my grandfather would bring me here. My mother told me to listen for the song the stars sang but I never heard it. When we'd get away from the city and come here and I could see just how many stars there were, I figured it was just me who couldn't hear the song. There must be something in the genes, though...Jett already loves the stars and wants to belong in the sky. If I can arrange it, I'll bring him to your house overnight before we go back to DC? You can show him Jupiter."

"I'd love that," Sam said, eagerly. She turned around and laid back down, snuggling her length against his. "This is so wonderful, Jack. Thank you for bringing me here."

He kissed her forehead and the tip of her nose. "You're welcome."

"And the one-year anniversary at the safe house, that was wonderful too. I'm not sure I told you that."

"You did."

Sam came up on her elbow and put her hand on his chest. "But you know what you did that made me just fall in love with you all over again?"

Jack's eyebrows lifted. "No but I'd be very curious to find out so that I can do it again."

"Well, you can't do it again," Sam said. "Not exactly the same way anyway."

"Now I'm going to die if you don't tell me," Jack said, so sardonically she pushed him playfully.

"You found a way for us to tell Cam about us without actually telling him. He's my friend and it was important to me and you took that seriously."

Jack reached up and finger-combed her hair. "I always take you seriously, even when you think I'm not listening."

Sam smiled and they kissed gently for a while before he said, with a worried frown, "So all that planning to make things romantic and all I had to do was let Mitchell in on our secret?"

"Well, I did love the chocolates and the candles, and the breakfast in bed was awesome," Sam answered, kissing her way along his jaw.

"I could have done more," Jack said. "Rose petals in your bubble bath? Serenade you at dawn at your window with a guitar?'

Sam started to laugh. "You don't play the guitar!"

"I could learn, if that was what you wanted."

"No," she said, "That's okay. No need to torment us any more than necessary."

Jack rolled over and rose up, throwing a leg over her to pin her to the bed.

"Do I torment you?

"Only when we're apart and I want you so badly I don't know what to do."

"I'm here now," he said.

Sam lifted her head up to offer him a kiss. "Yes," she said, "You are. We should take advantage of that."

"I'd never take advantage of you," Jack said, not even a little bit seriously. "That would be objectifying you and being sexist and–"

Sam stopped his words with a kiss. Jack met her with his mouth open and his tongue eager.

When they stopped briefly to catch their breath, Sam wriggled and said, "Quit messing around and objectify me, O'Neill."

Without hesitation, Jack grabbed Sam's hands and raised them above her head, holding them there. Arousal rose hard in both of them. With a wicked grin, slowly, exquisitely, he began to ravish her again.

(0)


	108. Chapter 108

**Tag to SG1 Flesh and Blood and SGA No Man's Land, which aired on the same day and were happening at the same time, after the credits roll…**

**(0)**

"Don't be mad at Cam." Sam's hands pressed against Jack's chest, the medals and ribbons hard and solid and real beneath her palms. Her forehead was against his collarbone. The strong, clean scent of him was in her nose. He was running his hands over her back, rubbing her soft white turtle-neck sweater against her skin.

Jack felt his stomach clench the same way it had when he'd read the report of how Sam had been rescued from space. He was also ruefully aware that Sam knew him much too well. "You got lucky," he said, tightly.

"In some ways, but in others," she paused and looked up at him. "It was…terrifying, watching the _Odyssey_ coming towards me. It was a gamble. But he pulled it off and I believed in him. Cam is an expert pilot, Jack, almost as good as you. I knew if anyone could do it he could."

Jack's jaw set against the growl he wanted to utter. If it hadn't worked, Mitchell would have killed her. But according to Landry's initial verbal report and Sam's own written one, she'd been running out of air. If she hadn't been in space, she might have been lost in the battle. From the reports, Jack understood that the Ori ships had plowed through their defenses as easily as if they were swatting flies. If she hadn't been in space, Mitchell could not have rescued her the way he did.

In reality, it was hard for Jack to be mad at him. It was the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that had made Jack give him command of SG-1 in the first place. Mitchell had repaid that faith by giving him back the woman in his arms. He tightened his hug.

"Don't worry about it. It's done. You're safe and you're here."

She felt leaded, heavy, barely on her feet. She had already admitted to a lack of sleep and a throbbing headache. But she felt a bone-weary sense of hopelessness and defeat too. Jack had felt the same thing, briefly, when Landry's ongoing reports about the situation so far from home had included the words, _We've lost contact, Jack. It doesn't look good._

Experience had made him go immediately on autopilot. He had miraculously remained calm during that short conversation. He had reported to the necessary people and continued coordinating with the Russians. He had given the necessary instructions through his overeager assistant, Pribley, and through Davis when necessary. But no one would have been able to tell by General O'Neill's controlled professionalism as he gave commands and informed his superiors of the situation, as he spoke directly to President Hayes via the red phone on his desk. that inside he was being tortured about the uncertain fate of his former team.

And all the while he had also been dealing with the situation in Atlantis. It seemed that if the Ori didn't make it to Earth first, the Wraith were standing next in line. At least the IOA had decided to up their level of jack-assery in that direction and poor Hank was dealing with them. Jack thought that if he'd had to tackle both situations there would finally have been bloodshed. Davis kept Jack apprised of the developments on the Wraith (and Jack had silently cheered Dr. Weir's reaction to the IOA's recall). He owed Hank a six-pack for the level of composure he'd maintained.

The Wraith at least had been stopped, renewing Jack's faith in the people they had sent to the Pegasus galaxy. Especially Sheppard, because, _damn_, if Mitchell could think outside the box, Sheppard was right up there with Daniel in having the ability to not see the box at all.

Now, as he had just told Sam, it was done. Teal'c was in the infirmary and had wisely acquiesced to Lam's orders to stay put for at least a day. Vala Mal Doran was there too, and according to the unofficial reports she had Cameron fetching and carrying for her. There was more to that, Jack knew, but he didn't feel like pursuing it at the moment.

Daniel had made the biggest fuss about the stay in the infirmary and had finally been released to the tender mercies of his wife. They had gone home immediately. Jack was relieved about that. A stay in the infirmary would have just had Daniel wide awake and chafing. Unless he was drugged to the gills, Daniel never rested in the infirmary.

"Jack," Sam said, softly, breaking the long silence, "We're all _fine."_

"You're all alive," Jack said stiffly. He knew that Sam at least was far from fine. She winced and he autocorrected from military commander to man desperately in love. "Hey, that's all that matters right now. Live to fight another day, right? You want to go home to the condo with me? It's pizza night for me and Jett. How does that sound?"

"Yes, I would adore that," she said. "Do you think it's safe?"

"There's a seven-year-old chaperone at the condo. If anyone acts the least suspicious I'll have them court-martialed. I can take a former teammate home with me if I want, especially one that's just been through hell. I'm the General."

He was rewarded with her smile. He'd have the town car brought around and take her home in style. He had never wanted to be _that_ guy – the one with the briefcase and the private driver at his beck and call. He had never wanted power for its own sake. He had only ever wanted it because it gave him the ability to protect his family.

But it had its perks, too, and he wouldn't hesitate to lavish them on Sam when the occasion called for it.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You said you have a headache."

"I'll take something and rest in the car. I know you haven't been home since all this started."

Jack didn't argue and while he trusted the nanny he had found for Jett, he missed the kid and knew that Jett missed him. Jett was also empathetic enough to be quiet around Sam if Jack asked him to be – or at least a little less exuberant than he usually was. He had planned on pizza and watching _The Sandlot. _Jack was pretty sure Sam would fall asleep during the movie but that would be okay too.

Jack held her for another moment or two and then gently pushed her into the chair in front of his desk. He reached over to the intercom on the desk and said into it, "Pribley!"

"_Yes, sir._"

"I want the town car out front in twenty minutes. After that I'm gone until tomorrow afternoon."

"_Understood, sir."_

(0)

At first, Jett was so stunned to see Sam that he didn't move. When he did move, he nearly knocked her off her feet. Even though she was exhausted Sam managed to lift him in a tight hug and hold him there until Jack thought she was going to fall over. In the end he put the pizzas on the table, thanked his loyal and long-suffering nanny, and then he went to pry Sam and his son apart, putting Jett back on his feet gently.

"How'd you get here? Are you staying?" Jett asked anxiously.

"I can stay for a day or two," Sam told him, glancing at Jack, who nodded.

"Aww, not longer?" Jett whined a little.

"Jett," Jack said, warningly. He didn't like whining.

"Please?" Jett asked.

Sam ruffled his hair. "We'll see."

Then Jett was eagerly tugging her towards his room. "Come see the model plane we built! We used four different sets and made up our own!"

"Okay!" Sam said, but Jack caught her hand.

"Are you sure?" he asked for the hundredth time. "Your headache?"

"Is going away," she assured him.

He nodded. "I'll get the pizza and movie ready."

He changed out of his uniform, listening to their voices coming from down the hall. It always felt more like home when Sam was with them. He had learned that being a mother was a reaction, an attitude, an empathy that had nothing at all to do with biology. Sam loved Jett unconditionally. She had thought of him as hers from the moment he had taken her hand for the first time on Edora. Even from two thousand miles away, Sam dropped everything to talk to Jett every chance she got, once a day if she wasn't off-world. Fortunately, Jett understood about the times she wasn't available.

Jack hadn't told Jett about the Ori, or the battle that had nearly cost them Sam, and he wasn't going to.

They let Jett rule the conversation over pizza and they cleaned up while he took a bath. When he came back out with damp hair and warm pajamas that looked like a baseball uniform, he plopped down on the floor in front of the big screen. Sam curled up contentedly on the couch with Jack as he started the movie.

"Feeling better?" Jack whispered to her as the opening sequence rolled.

"Mmm," she agreed. "This is nice."

"Headache gone?"

"Completely."

"Still tired?"

"Exhausted."

Jack kissed her forehead. "Close your eyes then."

She did, sighing softly. "I had a dream out there," she murmured.

"Out there?"

"In space, while I was stranded. I tried to sleep, to slow down my breathing, save air. I dreamed, or maybe just hallucinated. I'm not sure I ever really slept."

"What did you dream?" He kept his voice very low and soothing, interested but not concerned, not disturbing Jett's ability to hear the movie.

"About us, the future. I saw us together. There was a house in the woods with a big garage and a fence. There was Jett and a dog and two more children."

"Two?" Jack asked, with a smile. He was almost fifty. The idea of more children had not occurred to him, but perhaps it had to Sam. It was something they would have to discuss. But not tonight. Tonight he would just listen to what she had dreamt about their future and believe it with her because the alternative was just too painful.

"A boy and girl. He was blond like me but with your eyes. She was dark, like Jett. They were beautiful and smart, Jack. Her smile was like yours."

Sam's voice was getting slurred and her body was settling against his one muscle group at a time.

"Sounds wonderful," he said. "What were their names?"

"I don't know. I couldn't really hear anything. It was weird. It was like watching an old home movie. You know, one of those super 8 films?"

"Okay."

"We can have that," she said, with conviction. "We should have that."

"Then we will," he kissed her again, lightly. "Go to sleep, sweetheart."

She did, falling asleep the way the way Jett did, with peace aand certainty. Jack held her close and hoped she was dreaming of the future and of three smart, beautiful children.

(0)


	109. Chapter 109

**Missing Scene from Morpheus.**

**(0)**

Jack glared at Hank Landry's image on the computer screen and growled, "The IOA did _what_?"

Carefully, like a man handling a rattlesnake and thinking 2,000 miles wasn't enough distance between them, the man in command of the SGC said, "They countermanded my order to bring them home. They said the risk is too great. It could be another Prior plague."

The two men stared at each other across the space between them with absolute understanding. When push came to shove, Jack was more powerful than the IOA. Not on paper, but in reality. The right words in the right places, the right message out into space to the right allies, and the IOA would crumble before his eyes.

"I know how badly you want to stick it to them, Jack, but this isn't the time," Landry cautioned, knowing the connection was as secure as O'Neill's Asgard technology could make it.

"I don't want to stick it to them. At the moment they're the devil I know. I just want them to get the hell out of my way. There's no way we let SG-1 just fall asleep and die." Jack's voice had a layer of poison under the usual calm.

"Are you going to take this higher, then?" Landry asked.

Involuntarily, Jack glanced at the red phone on the corner of his desk. He wasn't the kind to go running to Daddy when the other kids wouldn't play nice. He abandoned the thought immediately and shook his head. It wasn't time to play that card. He wasn't powerless in this case. He'd been a small-unit undercover Special Forces agent for the better part of three decades. Now he was leading a guerilla war against overwhelming odds across the vast expanse of galaxies. He was still learning to use that kind of power, but he was already a force to be reckoned with. He'd accepted the job and the extra set of stars so that _he _would be where the buck stopped, and right now the IOA be _damned._ He'd go get her – _all of them –_ by himself if that was what he had to do. He answered Landry, "No. In this case, I _am_ higher."

Landry nodded. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Send in a retrieval team and bring them _all_ the hell home, in full quarantine, and do it _now_."

"And the IOA?"

"I'll cover you with them," Jack answered.

"Is that an order?" Landry asked.

"Do it _now_, Hank," Jack repeated.

"They're already dialing the Gate," Hank responded.

In the background, Jack could hear the familiar sound of the chevrons encoding. "I want to be told the minute the Gate dials to bring them back."

"Understood," Landry said, and signed off the connection.

Jack hit the intercom button with more savagery than was really needed. "Pribley!"

"_Yes, General_?"

"I want Mr. Richard Woolsey in this office in the next fifteen minutes, and if I don't get that I'm going to be _very_ unhappy."

"_I'm on it, sir_," Pribley answered sharply.

Jack grunted with satisfaction. Pribley looked a lot like that kid Sherman who used to travel through time with Mr. Peabody. But the kid got things done the way Jack liked. He adjusted the name plate on his desk and reached for his discarded tie.

He'd sit Woolsey down in the chair across from his desk, with the Air Force flag over his right shoulder and the United States flag over his left and look the man straight in the eye. Major General Jack O'Neill could end all their careers over a sandwich and coffee in the Oval Office.

Hopefully the man was smart enough to get the message.

(0)

He was standing in the control room when they came home, when the casket like quarantine units were carried back through the Stargate. He was shaking inside – from anger or anxiety he didn't know for sure. Maybe a combination of both. He'd left Woolsey still sitting in the chair. He'd given him strict instructions to vacate the office before he got back.

"I want updates on their _exact_ condition and I want to know when they're cleared," Jack said, over his shoulder. He'd caught a flash of blond hair in the second unit to be carried through and couldn't stop watching as it disappeared out into the hall on the way to the isolation wards.

He didn't say if. He said when. He expected them to make a full recovery and he expected to be told about it immediately. Landry pitied the poor medic that tried to tell him differently.

"You'll be the first one I call," Hank said.

A second later there was a flash of light and O'Neill vanished.

(0)


	110. Chapter 110

After the credits roll on Morpheus, Sam wakes up.

(0)

She could hear voices speaking as if they were far away, though she knew they were nearby. Very close, in fact. She was Air Force trained, but her survival skills had been honed over eight years by a man known for his Special Forces skills. She knew better than to move or open her eyes until she'd completely assessed the situation.

And she needed to remember what the hell had been happening to her before losing consciousness. She felt so tired that she wasn't certain she wanted to open her eyes, and her limbs didn't seem inclined to move at all.

"He has done well, all things considered. His actions on Vagonbrei proved his value to the team."

"You just like him because of all the new Sodan training."

"Indeed. Such things will give us an advantage over the Ori."

Teal'c, Sam thought, and Jack. Are we off-world then or…no, they're talking about the Sodan, talking about Cam. We were off-world and there was a problem. We were….

It came back to her in a rush. They were dying. Literally about to fall asleep and never wake up. They had put her in a coffin. They were going to bury her alive!

Sam sat up with a sharp inhalation of breath. Every muscle and bone protested with a shriek of pain.

"Ja–" She didn't so much catch herself as run out of air to complete the word.

"Whoa! Easy, cowgirl," Jack said. He had leapt to his feet and put his hands on her shoulders to gently push her back down on the pillows. Sam wrapped a hand around his wrist and hung on, just because she could.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, then hastily added, "Sir."

"Well now, see, that's kind of a funny story," Jack said, pulling the covers up and smoothing them out again before he sat down next to her. "I had to talk to Woolsey about a half-assed order the IOA gave, and then I had something I needed him to do for me. So I had the Odyssey beam us both here. Then all of you came back. Then I thought I might as well hang around until you woke up so I could get a report about this firsthand. Oh, and there was a brief trip back to Arlington to pick Jett up from school and get him settled for the night."

Sam lifted her eyebrows. "Emily is staying with him?"

"Yeah," Jack drew the word out slowly. "She knew there would be overnights when she took the nanny job. I told Jett I would be back in the morning though, so thanks for waking up when you did."

"Glad I could be of service," she answered.

It hurt, how glad she was to see him. It caused an ache in her throat to sit and speak of something as normal as his son and school. Then she realized something horrible and tried to sit up again.

"Where are Cam and Daniel?" Sam demanded, fighting panic.

"In Isolation 1," Jack said. His hands were back on her shoulders, firm, steadying. "They're fine. Daniel woke up a little while ago and is already bitching about wanting to go home. Mitchell's still asleep, but from what Teal'c told me he fought it off longer."

"Really?" Sam asked.

Jack's eyes narrowed. Giving her a puzzled look he asked, "When did I start lying to you?"

Sam stared at him for a split second, then choked out, "Never." She fought the tears even though she had cried in Jack's arms before. The physical toll of what they had gone through was over. But the emotional stress of nearly losing her own life and her entire team was still waiting to be dealt with. She understood why Daniel was bitching about going home. He'd want the solitude of his home, the safety of his wife's understanding, and the joy of his son to balance out what they had survived. Daniel had always withdrawn to recover.

Daniel wouldn't cry, but he'd make everyone miserable until he got what he wanted.

Sam knew what she wanted too, and she wasn't going to get it. She wanted to go home to Jack and Jett.

That conversation passed in the split second that she held Jack's firm and reassuring gaze.

"C'mere," he mouthed softly, and then she was in his arms. Once there she found the tears dried up, though a few choked, relieved sobs left her. She put her hands against his chest, arms tucked in at her sides, and breathed in all the Jack-flavored air that surrounded her.

His back was to the windows and the cameras so no one could see his mouth moving. He whispered softly, "Give it two days and I'll bring you to DC. It'll be Saturday. We can spend the day with Jett. You wanted to take him to the Science Education Center at the Smithsonian. Right?"

Sam nodded and swallowed the next sob. She was done crying. No matter what anyone said, it should be beneath the dignity of an Air Force dfficer and Doctor of Astrophysics to burst into tears over everything. The scientist in her deflected the pleasure principle and firmly embraced the reality principle, even if it meant that pleasure would be postponed. Sometimes she hated being an educated and reasonable ego.

And holy Hannah, she was sometimes glad she wasn't the actual leader of SG-1 anymore. Let Cam deal with all their stress. Cam could send Daniel home and make sure the Do-Not-Disturb sign went up on Teal'c's door.

As for Cam himself, Sam realized she had no idea what he would do. It was possible he'd go home to the condo, put ESPN on the TV, eat a bag of chips, have a couple of beers and crash on the couch. But he deserved better than that, and Sam resolved to make sure he had company. She could talk to Cam – really talk – all night if they needed, until the light of dawn was creeping in around the drapes.

There was still a teardrop clinging to the corner of her eye. With a minute turn of his head, Jack kissed it away.

Reluctantly, Sam let go of him and sank back down on the pillows again.

"What did you need Woolsey to do? Can you tell me?" she asked.

Jack made a dismissive gesture with his hand. But his face looked like he had swallowed something sour. "Oh, Daniel called me about keeping Mal Doran here on a permanent basis. So we came up with a little test."

"A test? The psych eval?"

"A little more," Jack said evasively. "She'll either pass it or she won't. We'll go from there in deciding what we want to do with her."

Sam studied him carefully, but his expression had once again become inscrutable. She wasn't going to get any more information out of him now. At least, if Woolsey was on the base, Jack was also here to keep a tight hold on his leash.

"How much longer can you stay?" she asked, quietly.

Jack shrugged. "A couple more hours. You hungry?

Sam thought about it. "Kind of. I could eat. There won't be much choice in the commissary at this hour, but you know what I like."

"Teal'c?" Jack asked.

"Indeed. Sustenance would be appreciated."

Jack looked at the Jaffa for a moment, then said, "That just never gets old."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow but Jack didn't say anything else. He stood up to leave and Sam inhaled as if to speak, leaned forward a little, and seemed to reach for him.

"I'll be right back," he assured her.

Sam settled down again but didn't look any less anxious. She knew how easily he could be called away. She saw that knowledge in his eyes.

"Right back," he promised again.

She nodded again and chose to believe him, because, as he had just pointed out, Jack O'Neill had never lied to her.

And he never would.

(0)


	111. Chapter 111

**After the Pegasus Project, Jack and Sam find out how hard the long distance thing really is.**

**(0)**

The doormat was tipped sideways. Sam knew immediately that meant Jack was inside.

He didn't need a key. His arrival had no doubt come in a brief and blinding flash of light. She hesitated a second at the door with the key in her hand. At this late hour, 1am on a Friday night – no, Saturday morning - Jack would have heard the car pull up in the driveway. He would certainly have heard the car door shut and her heels on the deck of her porch.

She didn't look for him as she stepped through the door and into her entranceway. If Jack wanted to be seen, he would be in plain sight. If he didn't, if he waited in the shadows like a surprise (even if he had tipped the doormat and signaled his presence), Sam wouldn't see him until he wanted her to.

Dropping her purse on the table against the wall, she put a hand on it and leaned over to pull off one high heel and then the other, sighing in pleasure. She didn't mind a night of team bonding that included dinner at the Broadmoor, teaching Vala to order from the wine list and then dancing afterwards. But her feet were killing her. Fifty miles in hiking boots was much preferable.

As she straightened up, Jack's arms came around her because somehow he was behind her even though she had just come in the door. "Hey," he said, kissing the back of her neck and lingering there.

"Hey," she said back with soft happiness, because she couldn't help it.

"I thought I'd surprise you but you weren't home," he said. There was no accusation in it, but there was a question. His hands had dropped to her hips, gliding over the silky fabric of her midnight blue cocktail dress.

For some reason, whether it was the amount of wine she'd drunk, or her aching feet or the fact that she'd put in a full day off-world before going out to dinner and dancing, the statement annoyed her. They hadn't seen each other in months. Was she supposed to be sitting around waiting for him every night?

"I was out," she said.

There was just enough sudden tension in her body that Jack's arms dropped away. It was just letting go, not wanting her to feel trapped or controlled. He stayed close to her so that it didn't say _I don't want to touch you now._ They stayed that way for a moment and then Sam stepped away from him, finding her slippers in the basket under the table and moving into her great room.

"Dare I ask where?" Jack said, picking up her mood. There was a brief silence before he added, "You're free to do whatever you want, you know."

Sam turned on the brighter lights in her kitchen and shot him an odd look. "I wasn't on a date," she said, defensively. "It was a team thing. Well, team plus Jillian and Vala and minus Teal'c. He's with Ishta."

"I know," Jack said. He was working hard at being nonthreatening and she knew it. "You mind if I stay?"

"Of course not!" She meant that. Even as tired as she was, there wasn't any way she'd send Jack away.

Jack's presence filled her with the same overwhelming sense of love and joy and arousal every time she saw him, whether it had been weeks or months or she had just gone into the next room to get something. The long time they had been apart had triggered some old reflexes. The long habit of too many years spent controlling every muscle in her face was resurfacing, keeping her from grinning at him like a lovesick fool.

While the part of her that loved Jack beyond all imagining was saying _I missed you, I missed you so much,_ the radical feminist in her was reacting to being ignored for too long and for leaving her in the first place and for him assuming he could just beam back in here whenever he wanted and pick right back up where they'd left off.

Which of course they could, and a relationship like that was something to be treasured, not something to get her independence all riled up about.

"Hey," Jack said again, "it's okay." He knew what she was thinking because she wasn't that good at concealing things from him, even though the moment had lasted all of three seconds. But then Jack smiled and there was a hint of pain in it and all her other thoughts fled.

"What?"

""Nothin'," he said, quickly.

"Is Jett all right?" Sam tried very hard not to sound as bitter as she felt about not having seen the boy she thought of as her son in so long.

"You think I wouldn't have told you right away if something was wrong with Jett?"

That sounded defensive and there was nothing she could say to it. "No," she admitted. "It's just been so long since I've seen him."

"You were in the Pegasus Galaxy!"

"I've been back for three weeks!"

"I'm not the only one who's been busy!"

"You hardly even called!"

"Neither did _you_."

It was as close to really shouting at each other as they had ever gotten. It brought them up short, breathing hard. Sam could feel a headache coming on.

"Look," she said, "how about if we go back to making sure we talk on the phone every day? Or try making real plans and if they fall through then so be it." Her voice started rising in frustration again, "And how about if we stop pretending that this long-distance arrangement works just _fine_ because we're both such rational, mature people and you have an Asgard beam!"

Silence fell between them again, painful and strained. Jack looked miserable. "Do we have an actual problem here, or are you just tired and venting crap at me because you're mad I just showed up?"

Sam leaned her hip against her kitchen counter, heavily. "Maybe both," she said. Then she sighed and let her guard down. "I _hate_ this. I hate the distance between us now that we're together, when we saw each other almost _every day_ for eight years and couldn't do anything about it. It's not working for me anymore and I'm not sure it ever did and especially now that Jett is here too."

Jack's lips parted as if he was going to speak and Sam held up a hand to stop him. "I don't want to end it. I _can't._ I'm not capable of ending it. I love you too much. I love Jett too much. I'm so freaking happy that you're here right now and it pisses me off that I'm that happy. You should have called! You were here and I was dancing with _Cameron,_ for god's sake."

Sam stopped, shaking and unable to look at him. Jack leaned against the wall, crossed his feet at the ankles and folded his arms across his chest. When she finally made eye contact with him she couldn't quite parse the look he was giving her. It had a particular intensity that she rarely saw and had never seen when he was looking at her. It was predatory. It was calculating.

She couldn't quite tell if it was possessive. But there was no way in hell Jack would be jealous of Cameron.

"_Cameron_, Jack," she said, emphasizing the word. "He's like my brother. I danced with Daniel too, and if you think there's something going on _there,_ well–"

"I don't," Jack cut her off sharply. "That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't want to be the one holding you back."

"You're not!" Sam protested. "Jack, we've talked about all this, I know we have, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate how much you talk to me. When you ask me what I'm thinking and I know you really actually want an answer."

"Do you remember how many times I've cut you off in the last ten years?"

"Not at home." Sam smiled now, in a misty kind of way. "Never at home, or anywhere that we were talking about _us_ and the future. But I'm so tired of being out with Daniel and Jillian and seeing how happy they are, and watching Vala and Mitchell doing the same damned thing we did for years trying to resist what they feel."

"Mitchell and Mal Doran?" Jack said softly.

Startled, Sam looked at him. "You didn't know?"

Jack shrugged. "Of course I did, but I didn't know you did."

"Mitchell's trying to be subtle. Vala doesn't know the meaning of the word."

There was a long, long, long silence after that. Finally Jack said, "So what do we do? I can't retire in the middle of this Ori thing, assuming it _is_ the middle and not the beginning of another eight years of hell. And I know you too well to think you're going to up and quit SG-1 again."

"We do what I just said! We make plans, we call. If you had called tonight, I could have been dancing with you." She said it as if she was mourning a moment that could have been and was lost forever. "I hate how excluded you are. I want you _here_."

"I can't be here, not all the time," he reminded her. "And you can't be there."

Sam gave a tired smile. "I can be there now. Right now."

He looked hopeful, stood up off the wall and braced his feet. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I have a few days off. I don't know what you're doing Saturday and Sunday, but I could spend those days with Jett and be there when you get home."

"I only have one thing I gotta do Sunday, with the Chinese about their 304. International dateline fucks up my work week all the time."

Still, neither of them moved.

"This is hard," Sam said, biting her lip and looking at her slippers.

"Is it worth it?"

She looked up sharply. "Yes!"

"Are you sure? You just used the word hate an awful lot in the last ten minutes."

"I also said I couldn't even consider giving you up."

"Really?"

"Jack!"

"So what you're saying is that we shouldn't wait to figure out how to make this work in between battles for galactic domination?"

"I'd really like to make it work right now."

He took a few steps towards her, smiling in a sexy, mischievous way. "Like _right _now?"

She smiled a little in return, feeling a thrill of arousal. She didn't speak until Jack was in her body space again. Then she could only nod. She pushed into his arms, demanded entry. They both groaned in relief, tightened on each other, and ground forward. Jack was hard and muscled and Sam pressed closer, tighter. Jack was shaking, and his head dropped. Sam kissed his ear, his neck, kissing and then licking, sucking, gasping, almost biting, ravenous and half-wild to feel this again, the hot electric rush of lust, the beloved familiarity of skin and scent and taste, saying with touch and with her body, _I miss you, I love you, come home, oh god, Jack, Jack, Jack._

Jack moved his hands to either side her head. "I can _feel_ you thinking! What?"

"You already know! I _miss _you," she said. "I miss you so freaking much." She was flooded with blind arousal, desperate need, and the words poured out without thought. "I love you, I love you, come here whenever you want and I'll be waiting. Come _home_. Don't wait so long next time. I can't stand it. Please, _god_, Jack, take me. Jack, Jack, Jack-"

By the time she said _take me_ Jack had pushed her back against the counter and thrust, hard, with his hips and his tongue. Sam surrendered, melting in submission and adoration and desire. His mouth found hers, tongue thrusting and moving over and under and around hers.

"Not here," he growled in her ear when they broke off. "Bedroom."

Breathlessly she said, "I thought we were going to go back to Arlington?"

"Not yet," Jack said, turning to guide her towards the bedroom. "Emily is there with Jett and this going to get loud. Besides, I have a better idea."

"What?"

"We'll pick up Jett and go to Edora for a few days."

"What about the Chinese?"

"Fuck the Chinese. They're getting a damned 304. They can train their own 302 squadron for it, and they can foot the bill. I'll kick it to Davis. He can stall them."

He nudged the door of her bedroom open with his foot, kissing her as they staggered over the threshold in each other's arms.

"Did we just make a plan?" she asked, falling backwards onto the bed and pulling him with her. Only half her mind was even on the conversation.

"Yep," he kissed her, "and this one isn't going to fall through."

"Promise?" she asked.

"Promise," he said, sealing her mouth with his.

(0)


	112. Chapter 112

**Season Ten's Insiders, an almost impossible episode to fathom much less tag but I thought I would take a shot at it.**

**(0)**

Sam waited anxiously outside the door to Landry's office. The prospect of meeting with Jack didn't usually fill her with trepidation. Usually it filled her with love and anticipation and more than a little blatant desire that had to be repressed, her expression carefully schooled.

But that wasn't Jack in there. It was Major General Jonathan O'Neill; and she knew it.

The fact that the incident with Ba'al had been a debacle of the first magnitude was more than enough reason for him to be pissed; and make no mistake he was pissed.

She straightened the collar of her black BDU and took a long breath, exhaling slowly.

The door opened and Landry stepped out. At least he was in one piece.

"How did it go, sir?" Sam asked, not really sure she should ask or if she wanted an answer.

"Oh I think I talked him down," Landry said. The tightness around his eyes belied the casualness of his tone. "But I've known that man for a lot of years and he's…."

"Pissed? Sir," Sam guessed.

"Oh yeah. You could say that. Good luck, Colonel."

Sam nodded and said tightly, "Thank you, sir. "Then she squared her shoulders and went in.

Jack was seated at Landry's desk, looking more like he owned it than he had when it had actually been his. He was tapping a pen on the blotter in front of him and looking like thunder. Sam felt her stomach clench. That look always served to terrify anyone who really knew Jack. Roused from his usual state of looking bored or distracted, Jack revealed the things that he usually kept hidden.

"Sit down," he said and she could tell he was trying to soften it. He was reacting the same way she did when they were together. Regardless of the circumstances, the electric attraction was always there, the spark was undeniable.

She sat down rigidly in the chair across from him and waited. He lifted his eyes from the desk in front of him and met hers. A fierce, wild joy blazed in them before it was quickly cooled into the professionalism they had used for to hold each other at bay for years.

"Tell me what happened," he said, leaning back in the chair and pinning her with those deep unfathomable eyes. If she had not seen the moment of fiery recognition she wouldn't have believed he was capable of it.

In precise terms and in an unwavering voice Sam gave him the most detailed report of her professional life. When she wound down he sat looking at a point in space just in front of him for a moment and then he leaned forward again.

"Why did you give him the file so easily?" His voice was taut as strung wire.

"I expected my account code to be blocked. That's SOP in a hostage situation. Once he knew I was in, there didn't seem to be any point in denying him the information. I still thought at that point that he would be prevented from leaving the Base."

"Do you know how Barrett managed to get around this highly secured facility carrying a gun?" The mildness in his voice was deceptive. It didn't match the hardness in his expression. Sam knew he was still viciously angry. She wanted to ask him if he knew who had gotten to Barrett in the first place and if the NID was currently under the same kind of investigation as the SGC.

"No, sir. I don't." She said, with very soft deference to his rank and his temper.

There was silence between them for a long time.

"May I ask a question, sir?"

"Yes."

"Why wasn't my code locked? The whole system should have been locked the moment Ba'al escaped. At the very least that part of the network should have been blocked."

Jack's voice went low, throat straining to even speak. It was the range it dipped into when he was forcing the words. "Landry was afraid it would make you a less valuable hostage and Ba'al would kill you."

Sam bit her lip while her emotions twisted in agony. "I thought it might be something like that." She struggled to find a way to change the subject. "How much trouble are we in?"

Jack didn't answer right away. He leaned over and shut off the recorder on the desk and then touched a small black cube with raised designs on it. Sam recognized it. It was the best Asgard anti-surveillance that calling in favors could buy. Once activated they could talk freely.

She exhaled in relief.

"You – not so much," Jack said, "I can't do anything about the SF who let Barrett in without so much as checking with the Officer of the Day, much less with Landry. I won't do anything about it, actually. He was a 3P0X1 specialist. He knew better. Landry might be asked to report to the IOA but I might be able to head that off too. The rest of SG1 is pretty safe but it would have been nice if all of you had managed to get your heads out of your collective butts and save me the massive headache of letting _Ba'al _out there in multiples chasing down the same weapon we are – one he intends to turn on _us_ rigtht after he deals with the Ori. Oh, plus the additional unmitigated pain in the ass that is dealing with the IOA."

His voice had risen slowly to the snap that made her shrivel inside. It was the kind of fire that had usually been met with Daniel's equally unnerving ice. She wasn't used to having it turned on the rest of the team, much less on the entire command structure of the SGC. But they deserved it.

Deserving it didn't mean the Jack's temper in this case didn't scare the shit out of her. It should scare the shit out of everyone.

She knew it was partially that this had been Ba'al and that alone was enough to bring Jack's temper out. She knew they hadn't taken it seriously enough from the beginning. The whole thing had been a major clusterfuck and Jack had every reason to be furious. There was nothing she could say to that. Nothing at all. She should have been thinking. She should have been able to figure out that the clones were allowing themselves to be captured. She should have known that the collective transponders would override the SGC's jamming.

She would have apologized to Jack. _God,_ she'd grovel to have Jack's forgiveness because when it came to Jack she had no pride whatsoever. She wasn't sure exactly what to do with General O'Neill. So she sat at rigid attention in the chair across from him and waited for him to unblur the line between their love and their rank.

"How much can he do with that file?" Jack asked, even though she suspected he knew the answer. She looked at him sharply and he returned a look that said _humor me._

"It depends. Even if he has three or four of the symbols already, or landmarks that Anubis knew to look for on the specific planet in question, there are still thousands of possible combinations and it might not even be on there."

"So it's just a race now," Jack growled, "To see which one of us finds it first and we don't _have _three or four symbols. We don't even have one. Just what we need, more pressure." He threw the pen on the desk and leaned back in the chair, thinking. "I want him found. I want all of them found and this time I want it taken care of."

"Is that SG1's new assignment?"

"No. There are other SG teams for what I have in mind."

Sam had long suspected that the last three SG teams Jack had created and handpicked were more for Special Operations than exploration. Still….

"You don't want SG1 anywhere near Ba'al. Nothing about this ever made you happy."

"No it didn't and I hope that bastard knew that if he had hurt you nothing would have stopped me from finding him and using him for batting practice."

Sam shivered. "That might be why I cooperated with him," she said, quietly.

"What?" Jack had gone on alert instantly.

"I didn't want him to hurt me because I knew what you would do, how you would react."

Jack's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Are you telling me that our relationship compromised your behavior in a hostage situation?"

"Not officially."

He continued to glare at her. "Jack," she said, trying to reach the man she loved and not the man who was second in importance to the program just under the President of the United States. "Our relationship always affected my behavior. Don't try to tell me it didn't always affect yours, especially where Ba'al is concerned. When you thought he had captured us two years ago you were almost out of your mind."

"I'm not denying that. It was a big part of why I handed the program over to Hank."

"We can't turn off our feelings. Neither of us can." Sam spoke cautiously. She knew that Jack hated being vulnerable. He hated anything that made her vulnerable. The trouble was they were both the other's Achilles Heel. She knew that she, Samantha, couldn't live without him. They had just discussed that in fact. She knew that he, Jack O'Neill, couldn't live without her. But she wasn't sure about General Jonathan O'Neill.

She wondered how llfe had ever gotten so damned complicated. "Look, Jack. I'm sorry. This was a major disaster and I'm largely to blame. I don't want to sit here and rehash our whole relationship over it. I wish… I wish…_God,_ I wish Daniel was here."

"Daniel?" He looked at her as if she was out of her mind.

"Because if Daniel was here he'd start talking really really fast and he'd explain all of this and all the reasons we can make this work and be professional and do our jobs and he'd be right. He'd do it because he believes in us and he's always wanted us to be together and Daniel fights for the things he believes in and we should too."

She stopped to take a breath and saw Jack staring at her in a kind of wonder. "You know you didn't do too bad in the 'talking really really fast' department just now."

Sam shrugged lightly. "You hang around him enough you pick up a few things."

"I'm putting SG1 on stand down. You all need a break."

"Daniel won't be happy."

"Daniel can stay on Camelot where he is. That _is_ stand down for him. The rest of you go home, go fishing, go bowling, get some sleep."

"That's the answer?"

"I want you all to lie low until I can get this sorted out. This was a major wakeup call that you're all running on too much adrenaline and too little sleep."

"Can I come to Arlington and lie low in the condo?" She hated how wistful it sounded.

Jack didn't answer that right away. They were going to be under careful scrutiny and having her at the condo might not be such a good idea.

"I'm not sure that's low enough," he said and he sounded quieter, more tired. "Honestly, I'm not sure what the fallout from this is going to be. I don't want you right in the IOA's backyard until this is over or some other major fuck up comes along to attract their attention. I'm hoping I can get them focused on the infiltration of the NID Just go home for now."

"Is that it then?" Sam asked.

"For us? No. For this for now? Yes."

Sam stood up because it was kind of obvious that she was dismissed. She felt as if she was abandoning him, as if all the things they had done wrong were now his problem and he had done nothing to cause it.

"It's okay," he said, reading her thoughts. "This is what I do now."

"Can you come to the house later?"

Jack nodded, still being careful with his facial expression. "Yes. I'll be there. Count on it."

(0)


	113. Chapter 113

**This is a tag to 200, which is so bizarre in so many ways I figured why not have a party on another planet that included Jett and JD?**

**(0)**

If nothing else, the SGC sure knew how to throw a surprise party. Cam had been so startled by the sudden inclusion of two generals and even Walter that he hadn't noticed the chevrons weren't locked for their simple recon mission on PK9-2033. They had been locked for the Delta Site, which had recently been restocked by the Odyssey and the supplies had included everything for the galaxy's best party.

The Delta site was built beneath the ruins of an abandoned city that Daniel had recognized as pre-Judeo Aramaic. Jillian was currently in charge of studying them, which Cam figured had something to do with easing the sting of losing the Hanging Gardens at the Gamma site. No one would authorize a return to the planet.

The Delta site city was alive again as the SGC settled in to do some serious partying.

It was ostensibly to celebrate the victory against the Wraith and the Ori at the Supergate, and as a side benefit Mitchell's 200th trip through the Stargate as well. But someone had also remembered that it was Johnathan Daniel Jackson's first birthday and there was a cake for him – next to the other three cakes all proclaiming either _Congratulations_ or _200_ – and a pile of presents that looked like Santa's workshop had exploded.

Mitchell was shocked by how many people were there. They must have been going through the Gate all morning while he had been tied up in the briefing room tossing random suggestions at Martin Lloyd. The 'glitch', he discovered, had been completely made up because the surprise wasn't ready at the time. Daniel's impatience with the time spent pitching ideas to Lloyd had been exacerbated by his concern that Jillian _and_ JD were off-world. How they had gotten him to agree to send his one-year-old son through the Stargate, Cameron had no idea.

It was a huge outdoor party with a series of barbecue grills going and plastic containers of every kind of picnic food imaginable. There was even beer, which Cam found more surprising than the party. Welcome, but still surprising.

Daniel had gone immediately to the table with JD's presents and birthday cake. Jillian had met him halfway, with a kiss that was just this side of being acceptable PDA and then they had gone to sit with Jillian's father, Alexander North, who was holding JD. Daniel had picked the baby up and held him possessively.

They had all shed their gear down to shirts and pants, stowing their gear under the table that had been claimed by the generals and Colonel Murphy, the commander of the Delta site.

Vala had been swept up by Scotty and Annie and made part of a group composed mostly of the 20- and younger 30-somethings of the SGC. Cam had made the rounds of tables until he'd been talked into a softball game out in a grassy field. He managed to watch General O'Neill and Sam, but there wasn't the slightest hint they were anything but former teammates and close friends. O'Neill's decades in Special Forces, along with Sam's near-decade of following his lead, no doubt helped. The presence of Jett gave them a reason to be close to each other without raising eyebrows as well. Jett adored the members of SG1 – at least the original members – and Sam most of all.

Cam was sitting in the grass joining in the catcalls against the other team and cheering on his own when Vala sauntered up and dropped down in the grass beside him. She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around her shins, and leaned over to nudge him with her shoulder.

"What is this called?" she asked.

"Softball," Cam answered in a soft drawl.

Vala watched the game for a few minutes, then said, "Teach me to play."

Cam kept his eyes on the game for a long time. He was thinking about teaching Vala and what that would entail. He imagined standing behind her with his arms around her, hands gripping hers around the bat. Those long legs that went on forever and every supple, sinuous, sexy inch of her pressed up against him.

Oh, that could not end well.

"Please," Vala suddenly amended, "please teach me to play." As if she thought it was her manners making Cameron hesitate. But when he continued to stall she added, "I promise not to ravish you, or encourage you to ravish me."

Okay, so she did get it.

Cam stood up and she jumped up with him like an overeager jackrabbit. She dusted off her pants as Cameron hollered, "Scotty! Is there another bat and ball somewhere?"

Scott gestured to a sports bag in the grass off to the side. "In there, sir!"

Cam went to the bag and dug out the two items in question. He put the bat over his shoulder and tossed the ball in the air, catching it one-handed.

"Let's go," she said, grinning happily, with a flash of brilliant teeth. Cam was momentarily breathless.

"Yeah," he said, "let's go."

(0)

JD, at one week and one year of age, was already happily up and walking and getting into everything he possibly could. After a marathon session spent opening gifts and thanking everyone and laughing at JD being amazed by a helium balloon, Daniel and Jillian carried him off to a less crowded part of the ruin, hoping there would be a little less for him to get into.

Inside a small antechamber of the main temple, Daniel put JD on his feet and let him walk around. The stayed by the door, the only escape route, and watched him toddling around on his sturdy legs. The carving on the walls drew his attention and that made both his parents smile.

Of course there wasn't much else in the room, but still….

"Daniel," Jillian said and he knew from the way she said it that she was on the verge of asking him something very important.

He tensed and stood up from where he had been slouching against the doorjamb. "What?"

She smiled to reassure him. "Nothing bad. I just…I want to contact the Asgard about our daughter. I want to do it now."

Daniel was startled and it took him a moment to carefully craft an answer. "Honey, JD is only a year old. You just weaned him. Are you sure you're ready to go through all that again so soon?"

The sudden hard set of her jaw and emerald-bright spark in her eyes alerted him that he'd given the wrong answer.

"Do not be mad at me," he said, tightly, emphasizing each word. "I love you. Being pregnant is an incredible amount of stress on your body. I just want to be as sure as it sounds like you are."

Her soft, heart-wrenching answer was almost his undoing. "Haven't you always felt like we left her behind?"

Daniel closed his eyes and turned his head to the side for a moment. He understood that Jillian had loved JD even before he was born. He knew it even if he couldn't feel the same way himself. In honest moments, he knew that he had not really loved JD until the moment he'd held him for the first time. Their daughter – Katherine Jillian Jackson, they had decided – was already a real person to Jillian. To Daniel she was the future, and at the moment she was safe with the Asgard, and he was fine with that.

But his wife wasn't.

"The Ori threat–" he began.

"There are always going to be threats, Daniel. There are threats to us even on our own planet. I'm not going to let the Ori or anyone else stop us from moving into the future we've planned. She's our daughter and I want her with us. Don't you?"

"I hadn't thought about it, except to think we'd wait at least another year."

"Another year!"

"Do you really want to have two in diapers?"

It was the wrong answer again, judging by the narrowing of her eyes. Daniel held up his hands to stave off whatever she was about to blister him with. "All right," he said. "We tried to contact the Asgard about the Ori a few months ago. I don't know where they are or what they're dealing with but they've been strangely quiet. I'll ask Jack to try again."

Her narrowed eyes flared open with sudden fear. "You don't think the Ori already…I mean, they're the _Asgard. _They're all right, aren't they?"

Daniel wasn't sure why he couldn't seem to communicate with his wife at the moment. It was probably his continuing inability to speak fluent 'female'. She was a mother, focused on her yet-to-be-born daughter, and he was a man trying to protect what was his. The disconnect was inevitable. He closed the distance between them and took his wife in his arms. She was stiff for a moment, unyielding. But eventually she softened and put her arms around his waist.

"They're fine_, baobei,_" he said, with as much certainty as he could because he didn't want her to start panicking.

"But if they haven't answered, and the threat is so dire?"

"We were part of the protected planets treaty against the _Goa'uld_. There isn't any other treaty between us and the Asgard. I know they owe us, but they must have their own reasons for remaining silent."

Just then JD lost his balance and sat down on the debris-strewn floor. His parents watched him, but JD only sat for a moment considering the situation and then stood back up. He swayed a little, then looked up at them solemnly. When they smiled at him he began wandering around the room again.

"Hey, JD," Daniel said quietly. "JD!" The baby looked back at them with curious eyes. "Usted va a ser un hermano mayor. Qué piensa usted de ese?"

"He doesn't know what a big brother is, Daniel," Jillian chided softly.

"He will," Daniel said. He kissed her chastely on the lips. "And soon. I promise."

JD came back to them, grabbed onto Daniel's pant leg, and babbled something that sounded like a question. Daniel let go of Jillian to pick him up and let him sit in his father's arms. "Que?" he asked.

"Papa ir?" JD asked, picking at Daniel's shirt and then looking anxiously at his mother.

"No, JD, Daddy's not going anywhere," Jillian answered, soothingly.

They shared a look over the top of JD's head, wondering without words that their son knew that Daniel's uniform meant he was leaving. He often said or did things that reminded Daniel and Jillian that he was taking in everything, all the time, absorbing his world in much the same way his father did.

Daniel leaned over to kiss Jillian again. A wife, a son, and soon, a daughter.

Was it what he had thought he would have someday? No. It wasn't even something he had let himself dream of.

But was it everything he had ever wanted? With the clarity of the bright sun coming out after a desert storm, Daniel knew that the answer was yes. It was.

(0)

When Jack felt he had put in enough time with the 'upper management' he went to join the group he really belonged to – SG-1 and by default, its satellite members, SG-8. Jett had abandoned the generals' table long ago to go sit with Sam. They moved over so that Jack could sit down with Jett sandwiched between them, happily eating a huge piece of cake with a generous glob of rainbow-colored frosting. Jack eyed all the sugar warily, caught Sam's eye over the top of Jett's head and frowned. Sam grinned at him and put a forkful of chocolate cake and frosting in her mouth. Jack stared for a moment and then shrugged. He didn't want them to start being 'good parent/bad parent'. Besides, Jett was being remarkably well-behaved for a kid who was the only one (besides JD) under the age of 30 at this party.

Jack pushed a paper plate towards Daniel. "Cut me a piece of that, would you? The corner, with the big yellow star." As he set it down in front of him and picked up a plastic fork, he said, "Oh yeah, now we're talking."

Sam laughed and went on eating her cake. Jett grinned and licked frosting off his plate.

"So," Jack said conversationally, "are you ever going to tell JD his first birthday party was on another planet?"

Daniel nodded, but didn't look serious. "Right after he signs the nondisclosure agreement on his 18th birthday."

Laughter went up around the table. It was good, Jack thought. It was good that even in the face of this current threat they could talk about a future SGC that would still exist seventeen years into the future. They had survived so far because the SGC recruited the best in the world. That wouldn't change. If they could get SG-1 to focus on the Ori threat and not get caught up in chasing after multiple Ba'als or hunting strange creatures. They needed to stop messing with technology that brought them more trouble than it was worth and find Merlin's weapon.

Yes, it was true that they needed this stand-down. No human being could run on adrenaline for as long as SG-1 had and not need it. The previous attempts to get them to relax hadn't proved fruitful so far. Jack hoped this would do it. He finished the gigantic piece of cake, downed the rest of the beer in the big plastic cup, and stood up.

To Jett he said, "Wanna go explore the ruins?"

Jett had been begging him to do just that ever since Jack had arrived. He jumped up happily, gathered his plate and napkin to put in the big black garbage bag and said, "Can Sam come?"

Jack was grateful for the long years of training that kept everything but the most benign expression off his face. "If she wants," he said, slowly. He turned to her. "You feel like walking around some dusty ruins?"

Sam smiled. "Sure. Never done _that_ before," she said, drily.

"You never did it with a rambunctious eight year-old," Jack pointed out, watching Jett running ahead.

With a flair for drama that she rarely displayed, Sam cast an affectionate smirk in Daniel's direction. "It just seemed that way a lot of the time."

Daniel returned the affectionate smirk threefold.

With Jett's honest request making an effective cover for them to take a walk together, Jack and Sam set off to catch up with him.

(0)

Jack would have much preferred a quiet stroll. Sauntering would be nice. But as he had pointed out to Sam they were with an energetic eight year-old. Hand holding would also be nice, but they weren't on Edora and they weren't the only ones exploring the ruined city. They passed quite a few corners with couples in them already, forcing Jack to guide Jett in other directions. Jack didn't begrudge them this part of downtime. It was just as necessary as playing hard and laughing hard.

What he envied was their ability to just find a quiet corner and have at it. For himself he'd risk it. But he would never do that to Sam. He would never ask her to cross that line. He just loved her too much for that.

Besides, even though Jett had been told to keep their secret, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that the boy would just blurt out something one day and everything would be blown.

"This was a good idea," Sam said, suddenly.

"What was?"

"This chance to celebrate off-world. It was a good – no, make that a great idea."

Jack shrugged. "I have them sometimes."

"No!" Sam said, with feigned shock.

"I know!" Jack responded, with equal surprise, "Who would have ever thought that?"

Sam rolled her eyes at him. Then she smiled at him in that way she did when she wasn't wearing anything else; the kind of smile she wore when she took his hand and pulled him back into bed on the rare occasions that they had time to spend together in bed. Jack allowed himself the small illicit thrill he got from it.

"What about you?" she asked. "Is this helping you relax?"

Jack started to protest that he didn't need to relax, then stopped because it wasn't true. There wasn't really a way to relax when he was always on-call, when he had the problems of two galaxies sitting squarely on his shoulders and it sometimes seemed like he had to ask the IOA if he wanted to change a light bulb in a supply closet and then wait for them to have a committee meeting to discuss the issue.

"Maybe," he hedged.

"You want to talk about it?"

Jack glanced at her. She was walking easily at his side, eyes on Jett but he knew most of her attention was on him. It wasn't a leading question. It wasn't an attempt to make him talk. If he said no, Sam would let it go without a hint of anger or distress. She wouldn't push him or sulk when he remained quiet.

"It's nothing really; nothing I didn't expect when I took the job."

Lightly she guessed, "A general's work is never done?"

He grunted in response. "A little of that," he admitted in a tone that conveyed a complex mixture of emotions. He didn't want her sympathy. He just wanted the sense of accomplishment he used to feel after a hard, dirty, successful off-world mission. He missed working with people who were the best, who were geniuses at what they did instead of working with bureaucratic idiots with their own hidden agendas.

They walked in silence for a while. Jack liked the feeling of having her beside him again, of wearing the old familiar uniform. The feeling of her beside him, the _sound_ of it, was also familiar. He let his next few steps bring him closer to her and not-so-accidentally brushed against her arm.

They followed Jett as he ran to the top of a stone staircase and out onto a wide, flat-topped roof. The day was starting to drift away. The view was stunning. A wide plain spread out before them with wild grass waving in the breeze. A herd of herbivores native to the area melted out of the forest shadows to begin grazing. Gray and misty mountains shimmered in the distance.

The sun was making a lazy glide towards setting, painting the sky in a kaleidoscope of color so brilliant it was almost blinding. Desert orange, blazing red, vermillion, yellow-gold, plum purple, lavender and pink, the barest hint of dark blue shading into silver. The day was dying, promising to shade into breathtaking twilight before fading into darkness.

"Wow," Sam said quietly.

"Jett, stay back from the edge," Jack said, warningly.

Jett came to a halt on the balls of his feet. Jack moved up beside him and dropped an arm around his shoulders.

"We could stay and watch the stars come out?" Jett suggested. "Like we do on the roof at home?"

"Sure," Jack said, "I've got a flashlight. Carter?"

"Me too," she said, with a warm smile.

They sat down on the roof in a quiet huddle. Jack got his phone out and let Jett play InvaderR, since he was pretty sure that just watching the sun slip below the horizon wasn't going to hold his attention for very long.

With such a lovely sunset occurring it was inevitable that they would eventually be joined by others from the SGC. They straggled up in small groups and in couples, and gathered in companionable units. Scott had brought his guitar and a small group singing folk songs entertained them for a while.

"Jack! Look!" Jett said, suddenly. There was a bright star just beginning to appear in the dusky gray sky.

"I see it," Jack said, "You win this time."

Jett grinned. They'd been playing this game since Jett had been old enough to understand what a star was. More than half the time Jack let Jett win.

About that time they were suddenly joined by Daniel and Teal'c. They settled down next to Jack and Sam as if that was where they belonged – because it was.

"Where's Jillian?" Jack asked.

"She took the baby home. He's about had enough birthday party for the day. Mal and Rusty were helping her lug the gifts home. She said I should stay for a while."

"Mitchell?" Sam asked.

"He went off somewhere with Vala. I don't know where they are," Daniel answered. There was a brief silence between them and then Daniel said, "So did I mention that the remains of this city appear to be remarkably similar to the one SG-8 found on P2X-4978 last month?"

"A few times," Jack said, indulgently.

"Those were the ruins with the writings that described much of the early movements of the Ancients as they went out into the Milky Way. Right?" Sam asked, playing along.

"That's our galaxy!" Jett said, excitedly, "Can we see the edge from here, Jack?"

"Not yet, but we will in a little bit," Jack answered, ruffling his hair.

"Are there constellations here?"

"There are some described on the wall of the main Temple," Daniel answered.

"Do you remember any of them?" Jett asked, eagerly.

Jack snorted, because of course Daniel remembered everything he had ever read. Jett's question was all it took and Daniel was off, reciting in detail the mythology of the former inhabitants of the Delta site. It was a jumble of names and places that Jack had never heard of and honestly didn't really care about. But Jett was enchanted and it was nice to sit in peace with Daniel's rich voice telling stories. Sam scooted a little closer to him, leaning forward to look at Daniel as he talked. Her hair was shining like pearls in the fading light and she looked almost as enchanted by the stories as Jett.

Jack looked out over the plains and breathed in the exotic scent of a foreign world. Then, moving slowly and deliberately, he leaned forward until his lips almost touched Sam's ear and whispered, "Love you."

Sam glanced up at him swiftly and gently mouthed back 'love you.'

Jack didn't quite smile. That was their story now, and to Jack, it was the only one that mattered.

(0)


	114. Chapter 114

Jack rolled the dice and grumbled once again about the little arrows that represented his troops. Sam gazed at him indulgently.

"I can pick them up. Jett can pick them up," she observed.

"Will you agree that they are boring?"

Sam shrugged. "They get the job done."

"I miss the little cannons," Jack mourned.

"Jack!" Jett said impatiently. He had yet to master the fine art of waiting for his turn, especially when it came to Risk.

"And who picked these colors? It might as well be in black and white," Jack went on. His hand hovered over his collection of little red arrows, poised to take over Europe.

"You're going to need to split that force into two or three columns if you want to pull off control of Europe," Sam observed.

Jack froze and gave her a narrow look. "Who is the actual general in this game?" he asked.

"Well it's _my _territory you're after," Sam answered. "I don't want you coming in with that entire horde you've accumulated."

"Jack!" Jett said, bouncing up and down in his seat.

"All right, fine!"

Moments later Jack rolled double twos and Sam rolled triple ones and they were laughing and throwing popcorn at each other.

Several critical moves later and Jett had taken over all of South America and Jack had declared the game was on hold until morning.

"Aww," Jett whined.

"Hey," Jack said, with mock sternness. "You're the one who wanted to play the Global Domination version and that takes a long time. We'll leave it right here until after breakfast. Tell Sam goodnight and go brush your teeth. I'll be in to say goodnight in a minute."

Jett got up, pushed his chair back in, and then went to give Sam a big hug and kiss on the cheek.

"I'm glad you're here, Sam," he said before running off down the hall towards the bathroom.

"Jett! Walk!" Jack said, hopelessly.

"Sorry!" Jett said just before the door shut.

"For him that _is_ walking," Sam pointed out as she stood and started gathering up the popcorn bowls and drink cups.

Jack followed her into the kitchen. When she started to open the dishwasher, he stopped her by coming up behind her and hugging her tight. He kissed her ear and said, "Our son just became a South American dictator. Should we be worried?"

Sam froze, startled. For a moment she didn't even breathe. "What?" Jack asked, instantly alarmed.

"_Our_ son?" she asked.

"Isn't he?"

"I've never heard you call him that before."

"It's how I think of him." Jack's voice implied that he always had, and was confused by her reaction.

"He's always kind of belonged to all of SG-1," Sam said.

"Not the way he belongs to you and me."

"Naytha–"

"Is his sister as far as he's concerned. He's never thought of her as anything else. If he's had a second mother at all, it's been you."

Sam turned in Jack's arms and put her hands on his chest. A cascade of emotions rumbled through her like a series of boulders rolling downhill: elation, humility, pride, honor and a small thrill of very real terror.

She was prevented from saying anything when they heard the bathroom door open and Jett hollering, "Jack! Are you going to read to me tonight?"

"I'm only in the kitchen, Jett, not on the other side of the moon!" Jack called back. "I think Sam is going to read the next chapter tonight. Okay?"

"WOOT!" Jett answered.

Sam and Jack laughed. Jack rolled his eyes. "I swear he thinks I'm going deaf already."

"He's just got more energy than both of us put together," Sam said.

"We're reading the first Narnia book. It's on the dresser and the page is bookmarked. You don't mind that I volunteered you?"

"No, of course not!"

"Reading is the only thing that gets him to shut down for the night. If not, he's up until midnight and then he _still _gets up at dawn." Jack made it sound as if he was griping, but he really wasn't. There was a twinkle in his eye the whole time. He kissed her forehead. "I'll clean up the mess. Then we can do whatever you want.'

Now the twinkle was in Sam's eye. "_Whatever_ I want?" she asked, mischievously.

"Well, short of handcuffs, yeah," Jack answered.

"_Gah_, you're no fun," she answered. She pushed away playfully just as Jett yelled, "SAM!"

"Coming, Jett," she answered.

(0)

Sam didn't reappear for almost an hour. Jack was curious enough to want to go check on them, but he knew that if anything brought Jett back up when he was winding down they'd be up with him until dawn. When she finally came back out he was sitting on the couch scrolling through the sports channels with the sound turned off.

"Is it hockey season again already?" Sam asked, looking at the game Jack had paused as she sat down on the couch and curled up with him.

"No, this is just previews," Jack said, with a shrug. "Did Jett fall asleep? It doesn't usually take that long."

"He wanted to talk," Sam answered, "and that's okay because I like to listen to him talk. He's anxious to start school soon."

"I want him to. He's starting to run circles around his tutor. He adapted to being here faster than I thought he would." He shifted around so that he was sitting deeper in the corner of the couch and put his arm around her shoulders. "So what do you want to do? I meant it when I said whatever you want."

Sam hesitated and then decided it was as good a time as any. "I want to talk. I need to ask you about something."

Jack stilled for a moment and then started breathing again, slowly. "Do I need to be worried?"

"I don't think so. It isn't about us."

"Are we going to continue complaining about new Risk? Because new Risk sucks."

"You're just mad your eight-year-old is beating you."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes, you are, but this isn't about Risk."

"Then what's it about?"

"Langara."

"Ah. I wondered how long that would take."

"What would take?"

"For one of you to start asking when we're going after Jonas."

Sam could only gaze at him for a few breathless seconds and then she blurted out, "Then when are we?"

Jack extracted himself from her arms and stood. Sam, robbed of the support she had been leaning on, fell over a little and then straightened up.

"I'm getting a beer. You want one?" Jack asked.

"Jack!" Sam scrambled to her feet and followed him into the kitchen. "No, I do not want a beer. I want to know when and how we're going to rescue Jonas from the Ori."

"Sam–"

"We don't leave anyone behind. That's been our policy for a decade. More than that, it's your mantra."

"Jonas isn't left behind. He's living legitimately on his home planet by his own choice – though why he wanted to live on a planet inhabited by loons is beyond me." Jack finished rummaging around in the fridge and stood up with a beer in his hand. "I have wine. It's–" he bent down to read the label, "–chablis. Do you want that?"

Sam started to say no, then changed her mind. "Yes," she said, going to the cabinet with the wine glasses and picking the biggest one she could find. She watched him set the bottle on the counter and get the corkscrew out of the drawer. "Jack–"

"It's already being done," he interrupted, pouring her half a glass and then pushing the cork back in the bottle.

"What?"

"I sent a team to extract him two days ago."

With her glass halfway to her lips, Sam stopped and stared at him over the rim. "What?"

"I sent SG-23 in a cloaked Tel'tak to extract him. They should arrive today and I should have a communication from them tomorrow. It's flagged to be sent to me immediately."

"SG-23," Sam repeated. It was one of the teams she suspected was really Special Forces. "And if they can't find him?"

"He has a locator beacon. They should be able to just ring him up to the ship."

"And if they can't?"

"We'll tackle that when it happens. We'll know tomorrow. Can you be all right with that?"

He was giving her a look of genuine concern. Sam set the wine glass on the counter without taking even a sip. She walked over to him and put her arms around his waist.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should never have doubted you. I don't know why any of us thought that we'd have to come and beg you to go after Jonas."

Jack used the opener screwed to the wall to open the bottle of beer. He drank from it and then put it on the counter next to her wine. "He's one our own, in spite of the boneheaded decision he made to go back to a planet of morons. If he had wanted to stay I would have made a place for him. Probably still on SG-1."

"You would have made it a five-man team?"

"Wouldn't have had to. Daniel wasn't all that keen to get back out there right away. He still felt there was too much he didn't remember. The truth is, I think he would have been happy to spend a year trying to make up to his wife for the hell he put her through. Jonas was welcome to stay. I told him that."

"If we don't find him–"

"We will."

"But if we don't!"

"I know you don't want to hear this but I need SG-1 out there looking for Merlin's weapon. You're the best minds I've got and you have to do that right now."

Sam didn't look happy but she nodded. "If we don't…" she tried again.

Jack looked resigned. "Then I suspect SG-1 will go rogue again, even against _my _orders."

Sam snorted but refused to underestimate him again. "If SG-1 goes rogue to get Jonas, you'll be leading the way," she guessed shrewdly.

Jack snorted and reached for his beer. "Come on. We'll watch some TV until we're sure Jett is asleep." He slung an arm around her shoulders and guided her back to the couch.

"And after that?" she asked, settling down again with her wine glass in hand.

Jack gave her a soft look with slightly raised eyebrows. "I'm sure we'll think of something," he said.

(0)


	115. Chapter 115

**This is a light moment before we get into the next adventure. Immediately follows the last chapter.**

**(0)**

It had become evident to Jack pretty early in their latest adventure on his king-size bed that Sam didn't want soft and gentle this time. She needed his rough possession, claiming her, branding her, taking her in a firestorm of heat and flame that would burn away the time apart and all the harsh realities they dealt with every day. She wanted it clean and fierce, a reminder that no matter how far apart, they were forever welded together.

He had been more than pleased to give her what she wanted, and afterwards they lay stuck together in a tangle of satiated limbs. Jack had tried looking up at the ceiling for a while but his eyes refused to stay open. The only thing keeping him from dozing off was the knowledge that Sam was wide awake. He had never understood how it was that she – thoroughly satisfied several times over – would want to stay up and discuss the state of the universe when he would just as soon let the world drift on by, taking him with it.

"What are you thinking?" Sam asked.

Jack felt his jaw ripple as he clenched it. He didn't mind the question, but really, what was the right answer to give when he could barely get ten brain cells to connect coherently? Not after what they had just done.

Sam rolled over to face him, dragging the sheet up over her long, impossibly lovely legs. He could feel her eyes studying him in the pale moonlight spilling in through the window. He contemplated lying and attempting something romantic. But Sam wasn't really overly romantic. She wasn't into hearts and flowers and the truth never disturbed her.

Still…telling her that he was thinking about falling asleep wasn't going to do him any favors. Telling her that a tiny part of his brain was working on the issues in Atlantis…he could hear her answer to that: _What? Now?_ He didn't want to bring up Jonas again because that would just set her off worrying again and he really did want to get some sleep.

"I'm thinking that if there is an inch of you that isn't beautiful I haven't found it," he answered.

Sam made a small, startled sound of pleasure.

_Good for you, O'Neill, _he thought. _That's the second time tonight you've scored._

He was just starting to settle down again, thinking the challenge had been met successfully, when she said, "No, really. What are you thinking?"

_Jeezus, honey, we just made love for hours. What do you _want_ me to be thinking about? I'll think about whatever makes you happy. I swear._ "That I'm glad Jett is a really sound sleeper?"

That made her blush. He felt the heat of it travel the length of her body until it invaded the cheek resting on his shoulder. But he also knew that this wasn't going to satisfy her either. He turned on his side so that he was looking into her eyes and stroked his knuckles over her face.

"I spend almost every waking hour thinking about intergalactic war on two fronts, against enemies that outgun us at every level. Am I allowed, right now at least, the luxury of _not _having to think about it? You are the only thing that matters when all is said and done."

"I didn't think you were battling intergalactic enemies right now," she answered.

"Those are my thoughts, Carter," he said, ruefully. "You, Jett, Ori, Wraith, and the IOA. Not always in that order, I'm afraid, though I would like it if they were."

Sam fell silent again. The hand on his chest started tracing his scars. It had become a habit of hers and Jack didn't object because her touch felt so good.

"I guess you have me sandwiched in between higher math and your next off world mission?" he asked, lightly.

She rose up on one elbow and looked at him seriously. "You are always the first and last thing on my mind."

Her eyes were the most powerful weapon Samantha had. Jack often wondered if she knew it, how she could relay the most private conversations with just a look. After that connection was made there was never any further need for words. To have her in bed with him, breathing on him, looking at him, her hair pale and translucent in the moonlight – he counted that as more than a miracle.

"C'mere," he said softly, reaching up to cup his hand around the back of her head. He kissed her quietly, reverently and then urged her to settle back down with her head on his shoulder again.

When he was with Sam, all his doubts about the future spilled away. Because no matter what happened now, he knew that Sam loved him. Nothing else mattered anymore. He had this much and it was everything.

(0)


	116. Chapter 116

**This is the beginning of the next short adventure and an attempt on my part to fix the stunning dismissal of Jonas Quinn from the SG multiverse. An ensemble story is very difficult to write and since in my little SG world there is no way Daniel would go back to Kelowna, this chapter is just to set all of that up and pair down the number of characters involved with the rescue of Jonas Quinn. Moonlight and Steel readers should bear with me while I explain why Daniel isn't going. Sunshine and Shadow readers lived through Daniel's first death and Ascension with Jillian and will understand her reaction. The adventure itself will – most likely -only be posted at Moonlight and Steel.**

**I hesitated in posting it because I just learned that we are going to be seriously short-staffed at work for the next two weeks, which means I am probably going to be exhausted when I get home. But posting it will also put pressure on me to finish it. So here we go. Let's go get Jonas and then it's on to Company of Thieves. **

**(0)**

The voice of Chief Harriman was still insistently paging Daniel to his office over the base intercom system as Daniel was exiting the elevator.

"All right, all right," he growled under his breath as he walked more quickly. He checked his phone one more time because if something was wrong with Jillian or JD surely someone would have texted him about it and he wouldn't be getting paged to his own office.

He rounded the corner into the office with a thousand questions all wanting to tumble out at the same time. But they all died unasked when he saw who was waiting for him.

Cameron, Sam, and Teal'c, and seated in the chair at the desk was Jack O'Neill.

Daniel stumbled to a halt.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He spoke as if no one else was in the room and it was obvious that it was directed at Jack.

"Waiting for you apparently. Where were you?"

"On my way home. I was almost in the elevator. How did you get here?"

"Asgard beam," Jack answered. "As to why I'm here, come in and close the door."

Daniel felt a small thrill of alarm as he pushed the door closed with a decisive click. He walked over to his desk and had a short and silent confrontation with Jack over the chair. When Jack didn't get up, Daniel sighed in frustration and hopped up on the table. "So what's up?"

"We heard from SG-23," Jack said.

Sam straightened on the stool at the table. "The team you sent to Langara to search for Jonas," she said.

"Yep."

"What did they find?"

Jack sat back in the chair and rocked it for a moment. "Nothing," he said.

"Nothing?" Sam repeated.

"Oh, they found the Ori. They've pretty much taken over. There are pockets of resistance, but nothing that's making much of a dent yet. What they did not find was Jonas Quinn, or any sign of him."

"His locator beacon," Teal'c began but Jack shook his head.

"No sign of it," he repeated. "Either he doesn't want to be found or he isn't on Langara anymore."

"You're sure?" Daniel asked skeptically.

"SG-23 is the best at what they do, Daniel."

"What exactly is it that they do, Jack?"

Jack refused to answer, just stared hard enough for long enough that Daniel decided to drop it.

"Could he have Gated off-world?" Sam asked.

"It's possible. They weren't authorized to go planetside. They were told to scan for him and see what they could find. There's not much on the public airwaves these days except for Ori propaganda and if he still has a radio he wouldn't – or couldn't – respond to it.

"And they didn't dare try to raise him on the radio too long or too often," Sam guessed.

"No," Jack admitted.

"So when are we leaving to go look for him?" Sam asked, urgently.

"I can't justify sending a team to look for one man who isn't even part of the program anymore, Carter," Jack answered.

"But we _are_ going to look for him," Daniel said, peering at Jack over the top of his glasses.

"All I can do is authorize SG-1 for some serious downtime. You've all got more leave time saved than you ever use. What you do with that is up to you."

The four members of SG-1 exchanged meaningful looks.

"Can you get us an Al'kesh?" Cameron asked Teal'c.

The Jaffa flashed him a wolfish smile. "Indeed. One complete with weaponry, rings and cloaking technology."

"You don't have to go, Cam," Sam said. "You didn't even know Jonas."

"I read the reports. If the rest of SG-1 is going, I'm going," Cam answered. Since there didn't seem to be anyone inclined to argue with him he added, "And I think we should take Vala. This is the kind of thing she should be good at. She can fly an Al'kesh, for one thing."

No one seemed inclined to argue with that either, though all of them looked at Jack, who shrugged and stood up. "If you think she'll help, take her along."

"What about weapons? We can't leave the base with P90s," Sam pointed out.

"We can beam out with them though," Cameron said. Then he looked at Jack for permission.

"Let me know what you need," O'Neill said. "Oh, and make sure you let me know when you're ready to leave."

"Why?" Sam asked, suddenly suspicious.

Jack grinned a little bit. "Because I'm coming too."

Before any of them could react in any way but stunned silence, a light engulfed Jack. It briefly blinded all of them and when it was gone, so was Jack.

(0)

Daniel approached the subject of Jonas very cautiously that night, in his home, after his son had fallen asleep for the night to a soft lullaby from his mother. Jillian joined him in the kitchen, where he was cleaning out the coffee maker and getting it ready for morning. She tried to help but he took the things out of her hands and set them on the sink and pulled her around to face him.

"What?" She asked, instantly alert that something was going on.

Very slowly, with his hands linked behind her back, Daniel told him about Jack's visit and what they were going to do. When he finished he waited. He had believed he was ready for her reaction and for her objections. He even had arguments planned and reassurances.

But nothing had prepared him for what Jillian did next. She stared at him for a moment and then her eyes filled with tears and she flung her arms around him.

"_Don't_," she whispered with her face pressed against his chest and her fists gripping handfuls of his shirt against his back. Her voice was fierce and filled with terror.

"Jill," he gasped her name, startled. His arms tightened around her automatically.

"Don't go there," she repeated. He had never heard her sound this way. Not ever. She had started to tremble as if she was feverish. "Please, Daniel. I have never asked you not to go on any mission. I've never stood in the way of anything you wanted to do, but I am _begging_ you this time not to go. Not to Kelowna. Not there, anywhere but there."

There were few things that made Daniel speechless, but this did. He braced his feet to bring her in closer, tightened his hold on her and bent his head into hers. "Jill-"

"_Daniel_," she cut him off, "Just please _don't._ You weren't here. You don't know what it was like. Jonas was here. He knows. He'll understand! Every time you go there - It's like, it's like Tegalus only worse. Jonas wouldn't ask this of you. He wouldn't ask it of _me_."

It was pretty clear to Daniel by this time that nothing he said was going to make any difference. She had told him once that he was like a star that had fallen into her hands and then she had been forced to put him back in the sky and it was the most painful thing she'd ever experienced.

"The team," he said, helplessly, "Sam, Teal'c-"

"They did just fine without you for fifteen months," she said, sharp as a knife. "I didn't. Daniel, _please."_

She was actually crying now, sobbing into his shirt in a way he had never seen. Unconsciously he had started rocking, the way he did when JD was upset beyond calming.

"Okay," he said, defeated, because _god_ when Jillian cried he would do _anything_ to make her stop. "All right. I won't. Jill, it's okay. I won't go."

It took a moment for what he was saying to penetrate. She took a deep, shaky breath and looked up at him.

"I don't want you to feel controlled. I would never do that to you," she still sounded so torn and miserable that it nearly broke his heart. "This isn't a cage, Daniel. This is your home and I'm your wife not your jailer-"

"Jill, stop. That's not how you're making me feel," he paused to wipe the tears from her cheek with his thumb and then cradled the side of her face in his palm, "I forget sometimes that it was you who endured those fifteen months. I don't even remember them; and you're right that Jonas wouldn't ask any of us to do this. I'm also an idiot who forgets sometimes how much you love me. You seem so strong all the time. So independent. I forget how fragile you can be when it comes to me. I'll tell the team I'm not going. You're right. You have never once asked me not to do something, no matter how dangerous. I can sit this one out. I can think of a dozen things I can be doing with downtime, including spending it with you and JD."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, turning her head to kiss the heel of his hand. "I don't want to hold you back, not ever. But I ..I…"

He pulled her close again and she pressed her face into his chest again. "It's all right," he said again. "You've been through something unique in the history of relationships and come out stronger."

"Not stronger," she said, looking up again and tossing her hair back, "Not stronger at all. The thought of losing you again brings me to my knees. I know that anything can happen to you out there. But there's something about Kelowna…. About Langara."

"I know that now," Daniel said, "I've always known it. Like I said, I'm just an idiot about some things."

"You're the most brilliant man I've ever met," she answered.

"Well, I did manage to marry you, so I'm not a complete idiot; and I've learned the nine most important words I ever need to say to you."

"Only nine in your vast multilingual vocabulary?" Jillian sniffed a little and tried a brave smile.

"Yes." He couldn't keep the emotional quaver out of his voice.

"And they are?"

"I love you," Daniel said, leaning down to sweetly kiss salt-tears from her cheek. "You are beautiful." He paused again to kiss her lips. "Please forgive me."

"_Daniel_," Jillian whispered. She reached up to put her arms around his neck and held him as if she would never let him go.

(0)


	117. Chapter 117

**I thought Daniel should tell the team about his decision.**

**(0)**

Daniel rarely had doubts about any decision he ever made. He had no doubts about this one, not after spending a night with Jillian restless and clinging to him in their bed. He had woken more than once to find her curled up close to him with her fists balled in his shirt. Of the two of them, Jillian had always been the better sleeper; it had always been Daniel who would wake at the slightest movement. But in the cold dark winter of last night, it had been Jillian who jumped and started and moved to touch him if he so much as twitched. The nightmare Jillian had lived after his death existed outside of logic and even outside of everyone else's reality. There wasn't a psychologist on the planet who could help her with what had happened.

Jillian – his true north, his rock, his guiding light – had come as close to breaking down as he had ever seen. It tilted the foundation of his world. His death still followed Jillian like a constant shadow. Every time she was reminded the scars from it bled afresh.

It seemed sometimes to Daniel that by being married to him, Jillian was living a dream and a nightmare at the same time.

Daniel was determined to fix that by putting his marriage ahead of his career for the first time. He would tell the team he wasn't going and they would understand.

He still had a nagging feeling that Jillian would not stop being restless and clingy until SG-1 returned with Jonas Quinn and she knew it was truly over.

He was just slightly surprised that she had chosen to stay home with JD rather than go with him back to the mountain to tell SG-1 that he wasn't going this time.

His team was in their private locker room, going over notes and the report from SG-23 that Jack had sent them. It was one of the few places SG-1 could talk freely on the Base, since security was nonexistent.

"Oh hey, Jackson, c'mon in and have a seat," Mitchell said, scooting over on the bench to make room for him.

When Daniel closed the door but made no further attempt to come into the room, Teal'c paused at his locker and eyed him narrowly.

"What is wrong, Daniel Jackson?"

It was the way they had learned to read each other, over the long years and many missions. The slightest change in breathing was enough to alert one of them that something was going on. When Teal'c spoke, everyone – even the two newest members – turned to look at Daniel.

"I'm not going with you," Daniel said bluntly.

"What?" Cameron blurted out.

"What's going on, Daniel?" Sam asked, almost in the same breath.

Teal'c stiffened and braced his shoulder as if he sensed trouble coming and wanted to head it off. Vala, seated cross-legged on the floor and twirling the end of a ponytail around her finger, sat up straight up. Her eyes got very bright with immediate interest.

"I told Jillian what we were going to do and she, um…" he broke off uncertainly.

"Had a meltdown?" Cam guessed. He'd read the reports without anything in them being redacted but he could still only imagine the personal cost of Daniel's death on his relationship with Jillian.

"It was pretty nuclear," Daniel admitted.

"Man," Cameron sighed.

"I'm sorry guys, but I just can't do that to her. She said that Jonas wouldn't ask that of me and that he wouldn't ask it of her and she's right."

"From what I read you and Quinn are pretty square in the life-saving department," Cameron observed.

Daniel frowned. "Yeah, I suppose. Though I owe him Teal'c and Sam and Jack a few times over, and it's hard to let any of you go off without me. But this is about my relationship with Jill, and she's made it perfectly clear how she feels about me going with you. This is about trust and being honest with each other, and if I don't respect this, I'll lose her."

"Jillian would never leave you, Daniel," Sam protested.

"No, I don't think she would leave me," Daniel agreed, "but it wouldn't be the same. She wouldn't trust me to respect her feelings and that's something I won't risk. Besides, I _do_ respect her feelings. She put up with me freaking out every time there was a threat she might be within a hundred miles of a Goa'uld. I threatened to tie her to a chair once rather than let her come to the base because there were three system lords here."

"Oh, wait!" Cam said, excitedly. "Yu, Camulus and uh…wait…"

"Amaterasu," Daniel supplied, impatiently.

"I was gonna get it," Cameron complained.

"We know, Cam," Sam said, rolling her eyes.

"Anyway," Daniel said pointedly. "I'm not going. I'll do whatever I can to help you get ready and if you find that Jonas left Langara we can talk about it again and see how she feels. I don't think it's so much Jonas himself, because I know she loves him the way she loves all of you. I think it's just Langara, Kelowna specifically."

"We all understand, Daniel," Sam said.

"You have made a wise choice, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said and Daniel gave him a long grateful look, because Teal'c had been there every step of the way for Jillian during Daniel's first Ascension. Teal'c knew better than any of them what she had suffered.

He nodded once, opened the door and left the room. SG-1 was silent for a brief moment and then Vala said, sarcastically, "Are all the men on this planet as devoted to the idea of marriage as the ones on this team or are we just lucky to have them?"

A low rumbling sigh left Teal'c that sounded like a warning of an oncoming storm. Mitchell looked pointedly at the report in his hand and remained silent. Very quietly Sam answered her.

"We aren't just lucky to have them, Vala," she said. "We are _very _lucky to have them."

(0)


	118. Chapter 118

It was five days to Kelowna by Al'Kesh. Vala had been delighted to be able to teach Cameron something for a change and they spent a lot of time together at the control as Cameron learned to fly.

Teal'c meditated and sparred with all of them at one time or another. He played chess with Jack and rigged a basketball court in one of the cargo bays so they could go two on two. Even Jack got into that once or twice.

They ate, slept, joked, talked, planned and played while the Al'Kesh took them ever closer to Kelowna and the mystery of Jonas Quinn.

By the time they settled into a cloak orbit around Langara Jack had made the decision to send Sam and Teal'c to the Gate room in the capitol city of Kelowna. He needed Sam to find out the last of the Gate addresses that had been dialed so they could determine if Jonas might have escaped to one of them. He needed Sam to read the technology. He trusted Teal'c to watch her back while she did it. He was taking Mitchell with him to confront the leadership of Kelowna for information, if they could be found and confronted. He was leaving Vala on board the Al'Kesh to beam them out at the first sign of trouble.

Jack was the least happy about that last decision but it was why she had been brought along and Daniel said she could be trusted. So he was once again ignoring all his instincts and gut reactions for no better reason than that he trusted Daniel.

He'd had a short and meaningful conversation with Sam about how much he trusted Mal Doran late at night scrunched together in her bunk on the Al'Kesh. He was lying on his back with Sam almost completely on top of him.

"She'll figure it out," Sam warned him, "Daniel and Teal'c did."

"Then let her. We don't have to confirm it. Look, I let you talk me into letting Mitchell in on it, but not Vala. I'm not giving her that kind of power over us. This is taking enough of a chance."

"She's a member of my team," Sam said.

Jack made a deep grunt of dismissal. "That's the only decision of Landry's that I almost over rode without hesitation."

Sam bit her lip in the darkness and then asked hesitantly. "Why didn't you? Wait! Daniel. Right?"

His second grunt was of acknowledgment. "Didn't feel like having him hound me until he got what he wanted."

"Jack-"

"You aren't going to win this one, Carter. So let it go."

Sam had settled down with a heavy sigh. Jack was very good at letting her determine the course of their relationship. She set the mood and the tone and pretty much ran the whole show. But when he put his foot down that was it.

Sam was nothing but professional the next morning as they prepared to beam down into a small space near the Kelownan Stargate. They were not picking up any signs of a Prior, and their unspoken instructions were to avoid them at all costs. There were no Ori ships in orbit and sensors were picking up only pockets of people living on what had once been a thriving continent. Tirania and the Andari Federation showed the most in terms of population but Kelowna in particular seemed hard hit. After the devastating effects of the naquadria bomb the opposite had been true for a long time.

Bent over the readouts, Sam and Jack had shared a grim look. "Knowing how stubborn and aggressive the Kelownans were they probably held out the longest," Sam said to him.

"Jonas always was the only one from that place who wasn't bat crap crazy," Jack answered in a low growl.

Sam actually blinked. "I don't see you giving up easily if the Ori make it to Earth."

Jack gave her a pointed look. "There are saner ways to fight than doing it in the full light of day."

Sam quivered inside a little. She forgot sometimes how many layers Jack O'Neill actually had.

There were still people living in the capitol but the outlying areas were conspicuously empty. There was little activity near the Stargate, which meant either it was gone or the Ori weren't concerned about anyone trying to leave through it. Neither option made Jack very happy. Langara in general didn't make Jack any happier than it made Jillian and for nearly the same reasons. He had often argued that the alliance wasn't worth all the trouble the planet had given them.

But Jack hadn't let Sam and Teal'c and Jonas risk their lives to save the planet only to lose it to the Ori instead. There were also strategic reasons to find out what was going on with Langara. Naquadria wasn't a substance the Ori should get their slimy hands on. It was the reasoning he had given for sending SG-23 in the first place – the need for recent and reliable intelligence about the state of the naquadria on Langara. Even the IOA hadn't been able to argue with him over that.

He doubted the entire industrialized planet had truly given in to the Book of Origin, not with Langara's history. He knew from his own history in Special Forces that there were going to be pockets of resistance similar to the one Vala had encountered in Ver Isca. He hoped to find at least one of them before rescuing Jonas. He hoped he would find Jonas leading one of those groups. But Jonas or not, he would send SG-23 and 24 back as reinforcements for any group they managed to locate.

"Any last minute instructions?" Sam asked.

"You know the drill," he said, feigning a nonchalance he didn't feel. He never liked sending her into danger and Sam knew it. "Get in, get out and don't get caught by the bad guys."

"Understood, sir," she said with a reassuring smile.

Jack didn't smile back. She didn't expect him too. But she knew exactly what he was thinking. She was still looking straight into his eyes when Vala hit the Asgard beam and they vanished off the Al-Kesh.

(0)


	119. Chapter 119

The Stargate complex was not entirely deserted. Sam and Teal'c materialized in a small corridor a short way from the room in which the Gate was kept. They were both armed with P90s and zats. Teal'c had a sling of extra ammunition for the P90s. Sam desperately wanted to avoid killing anyone on one of their allied planets, but she knew how things could get.

Teal'c picked up the presence of people before Sam did. She was never sure how he did that, if his senses were just that much stronger than those of the Tauri or if it was his decades of experience. But she never doubted him. When he ducked into an alcove and lifted his zat, Sam followed him immediately.

She heard the footsteps a half-instant after Teal'c tensed every muscle in his body in preparation to fight. When the footsteps were in exactly the place they wanted them, they stepped out as one unit and opened fire with the zats. The three people who had been approaching dropped in a blaze of coruscating light.

Sam and Teal'c froze back to back. Teal'c had a weapon in each hand, pointed in two directions. Everything was quiet. They relaxed infinitesimally. Sam looked at Teal'c with a question in her eyes and he nodded. They paused as Teal'c investigated the stunned figures for weapons or identification. When he found neither they proceeded to the door of the Gate Room and slipped in without further confrontation.

The Gate loomed over them, still and quiet in the dimly lit room. The DHD was hidden under a tarp. Sam pulled it off while Teal's took up a defensive position at the door. Sam hunkered down and pulled off the control panel.

"They've pulled two of the control crystals. No wonder it's not being guarded. No one can dial out from here. It's why we weren't able to dial in anymore. Both those crystals are necessary for those functions."

"Can you find the last address that was dialed?" Teal'c asked.

"Yes. Everything else has been wiped but the last address is here."

Sam noted the address and wrote it down, giving a copy to Teal'c and keeping one for herself. Then she hit the radio.

"Vala?"

"Here."

"We're ready to come back."

The Asgard beam flashed and took them away.

(0)

Concerned about setting off alarms in the State House of the Ruling Council, Jack had Vala put them down in an alleyway. The sun was slowly setting and they paused a moment to make sure their arrival had gone unnoticed. They made their way through the darkening streets, blending easily into the few people who were still wandering the streets, though it felt odd to Mitchell to be in civilian clothing. But the General had planned for everything. Langaran fashion sense didn't seem to have improved since they had first made contact in 2002 and the bland jumpsuit wasn't at all comfortable. But its shapeless design allowed for the concealment of a zat and a small handgun.

The people were all unusually quiet and it was easy to pick out the ones who were part of a patrol of some kind. They were out on the prowl for trouble makers. Jack and Cam kept their heads down and moved as if they knew where they wanted to go but weren't in a hurry to get there. The General seemed very good at hiding in plain sight.

The State House was surrounded by an eight foot high wall with guard towers in the corners. A large, recessed, arched entryway split the front wall in two. There was a huge iron gate that barred the entryway when it was closed but it was still open for the day. People were pouring out, no doubt finished with their daily shift at whatever work the Ori still allowed. There was a smaller group of people entering the building and Mitchell guessed these were the evening workers, the cleaning staff and custodians. He was surprised for only a moment to find that he and the General were dressed identically to the people walking complacently into the State House complex.

"General, sir," Mitchell began.

But Jack cut him off with a glance and a half-smile. "SG-23 is very good at what they do," he said.

"They were ordered to stay off the planet," Mitchell protested.

Jack shrugged as they slipped into the small stream of people going into the complex when everyone else was coming out. "Like I said, they are very good."

Cameron knew he wasn't going to get any more information than that so he fell silent.

The building itself was gleaming white marble, triangular with tall towers on each point, giving it the look of a palace. The towers themselves were indented in the middle, as if a giant fist had crushed them. They were flat-topped, with blinking landing lights around the perimeters. Each tower bore the flag of a different Langaran Nation. The flag of Kelowna flew alongside the personal seal of the Kelownan Minister, indicating that Minister Dreylock was currently in residence.

Obediently, they followed the flow of people into the palace and then into the back corridors, through maintenance doors. They took a fully stocked cleaning cart and then made for the cargo elevators that would take them up the Kelownan Tower. No one else tried to do the same thing and Jack assumed the tower was probably cleaned very late at night, after the First Minister had gone to bed.

They entered the main office and found it deserted. There was a door marked with a sign they assumed said something about it being a private entrance. It was locked, but Mitchell watched in fascination as Jack pulled a long pin out of the seam on his jumpsuit and expertly picked it open. The door swung open on a startled and instantly outraged First Minister Dreylock.

It took her a moment to look away from the uniforms and see the man. Mitchell she didn't know at all. But Jack… Well, he was hard to forget given their last encounter.

"General O'Neill?" She said, regaining her composure quickly.

"First Minister," he answered with a polite nod of his head.

Cameron crept in behind him and shut the door with a loud click.

"Jonas said you would come," she told them shaking her head as if she still didn't believe it.

Jack studied her closely, not quite sure if Dreylock was now a true believer in Origin. He started moving around the room as if he owned it, checking the other rooms, running his fingers around the edges of door and window frames looking for listening devices, closing windows.

"We lost contact," he said, slowly. "Had to come check it out."

"You warned us about the Ori. Everything you said was true."

"Can we talk in here?" He asked bluntly.

"As far as I know yes. There are no Priors on Langara at the moment and as for the Ori themselves they think we are all well and truly believers."

"Probably your safest course of action," Cameron said, softly.

Dreylock looked at him as if she was just noticing that Jack wasn't alone. Jack in the meantime had pulled out a small electronic device and was scanning the room with it. Cameron recognized it as a radio frequency detector with a spread spectrum analyzer.

It wasn't just SG-23 that was good, apparently.

Cam nodded to Dreylock and said, "Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell at your service, ma'am."

"What happened?" Jack asked when the device in his hand satisfied him that they weren't been spied on.

"At first they tried the plague but we used the cure given to us by Earth. Then they simply started burning cities. The Andari Federation capitulated first. We haven't heard from them in months. Kelowna held out longer but we were evacuating as many of our citizens as possible through the Stargate. Jonas Quinn argued against an evacuation to Earth. He didn't want to reveal your Gate address to the Ori. But when Earth first warned us of the Ori, Kelowna began searching through the Stargate for planets to colonize, similar to your Alpha and Beta sites. We moved a great deal of our artwork and national treasures to a planet not far from here, in interstellar terms. Jonas Quinn went through with some of the groups that evacuated but on his last trip we lost contact with them entirely. We have no idea what happened to them and then the Ori came after Kelowna and we lost five cities before we gave up."

"You have resistance groups?"

"Of course, but there isn't actually much we can do. Regretfully, the power shown by the Ori has actually convinced most of the population to worship them as gods. Are you here to offer us some kind of assistance?"

"What we can," Jack acknowledged. He briefly outlined their search for Merlin's weapon without going into any kind of historical detail. It was just enough to give her hope that the same people who had defeated the Replicators and the Goa'uld had some idea how to stop the Ori. Then he gave her a small black square and said, "Colonel Carter also developed a device that renders the Priors powerless. Dr. Jackson translated the instructions for building one into Kelownan."

Dreylock raised both eyebrows in surprise. "Dr. Jackson did that for us?"

Jack resisted the snarky comment that rose in his throat. "Yes he did," he said, instead.

"Dr. Jackson is an …extraordinary man," she said.

"Well, he was Enlightened, you know," Jack said, because in the end he couldn't ever quite stop himself from reminding the Kelownans that Daniel had died here. Daniel had beaten Death. So surely the Ori weren't going to be a problem for him. He let Dreylock's wince pass and added, "Carter says you have all the necessary technology to build your own device. I'd just hold off revealing that you have it unless it's absolutely necessary."

Dreylock took the square with no small amount of awe on her usually severe face. Then she looked frankly at Jack. "You didn't just come for Langara did you?"

"Earth came to help one its allies, "Jack answered, just as frankly, "I came for Jonas Quinn."

She nodded and looked resigned. "I thought as much. He was a member of your team and I well remember how devoted you were to your team. I wish I could tell you where he is, but the technical aspects of our satellite site were beyond me."

"I've got people working on that," Jack said.

"There is someone you should meet though," Dreylock said. She walked over to a box on an end table and paused, looking at Jack for permission. When he nodded, she pressed a button on the top of it and spoke, "Ashlen?"

A moment later a voice responded. "Yes, First Minister?"

"Can you join me in the private residence please?"

The voice sounded puzzled but said instantly, "Of course. I'll be right there."

Moments later a tall, slender woman with short brunette hair and brown eyes, wearing a utilitarian beige jumpsuit and sensible boots entered the room. She started to speak and cut off abruptly when she saw Jack and Cameron.

"Oh," she said in surprise, her eyes flying to Dreylock for an explanation.

"Ashlen, may I present General Jack O'Neill, the leader of Earth's SG-1 and Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell."

All the color left the young woman's face. "Did you find Jonas? Is he dead?"

It was the last thing Jack expected to hear and he was uncertain how to answer at first.

"Ashlen is my liaison with the Stargate program" Dreylock said, sparing him the effort of forming a reply. "She knows more about the satellite site than anyone left on Langara. She is also Jonas Quinn's wife."

Jack recovered pretty quickly, "Then it's nice to meet you. But we haven't even started looking for Jonas yet. That's what we came here to do."

"Then take me with you," she said, quickly.

"I'm not sure that's-"

"He's at the satellite site!" Ashlen said, daring to cut Jack off in mid-sentence. "The First Minister just told you that I know more about it than anyone else. He's my husband! You have to take me with you."

"Ashlen," Dreylock said, trying to sound reasonable. "What about Ainsley?"

"She's staying with my parents," Ashlen said, "It was only supposed to be for a few days but it can be longer if necessary. She's as safe there as anywhere on this Ori-cursed planet." She sounded bitter and furious.

"Who's Ainsley?" Cameron asked suspiciously.

"Our daughter," Ashlen answered, "Well my daughter but Jonas's too. It's complicated. You wouldn't understand."

Jack looked to the side and said, softly, "Oh, no. I think I get it."

"He's the only father she's ever known. He's my husband. If you're going after him you have to take me with you."

She was passionately insistent; not hysterical or wide-eyed, just jaw-set determined. There was a small part of Jack that realized distantly she was a very lovely woman.

Jack looked sideways at Dreylock. "Anyone likely to notice she's missing?"

"I can say she went to the country to be with her family," Dreylock answered, "I can tell them she's doing something classified for me, which is true in a way. They'll cover for her."

Jack looked at Mitchell and nodded so Cam went to stand next to her.

"You're gonna have to hold onto me and trust us for a minute or so. Okay?" He asked.

She nodded and slipped an arm through his, looking more stubborn and determined than ever. Jack turned once more to Dreylock, "For now, try to stay off the Ori radar as much as possible. When we're successful in dealing with them once and for all, I suspect you'll know."

He walked over and stood beside Mitchell. It was obvious their time on Kelowna was over.

"Thank you for this," the First Minister said. As they vanished in a dazzling display of light she added quietly, "Good luck."

(0)


	120. Chapter 120

Jack, Cameron and Ashlen materialized on the Bridge of the ship to find Vala, Teal'c and Sam peering at a screen with a close up of a section of the Milky Way Galaxy.

"Oh, we can't go there," Vala was saying. Her hand was still hovering over the control for the Asgard beam but her eyes were fixed on the screen.

"Why not?" Jack demanded, drawing everyone's attention.

Cam was letting go of Ashlen as they turned to look. Teal'c straightened immediately, on alert. Sam stood up more slowly. Vala glanced and then looked back at the screen.

"Sir?" Sam said.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Ashlen, who is Mrs. Jonas Quinn."

Sam stared while trying not to. Teal'c 'rippled' slightly and then went still. Vala glanced again, paused and then swiveled her chair around to face all of them.

"Well that's interesting," Vala said.

"Jonas got married?" Sam said in a carefully neutral voice. She wasn't quite sure how to react to that news.

"A few months ago," Ashlen said, "when Kelowna started seriously evacuating through the Stargate. With things the way they were – the way they are – we didn't want to wait; and it was a Kelownan ceremony, not anything from the book of Origin."

"I can understand that," Sam said slowly. "We didn't know."

"Well you're kind of far away," Ashlen said, with a small smile, "and we've been kind of busy. This is so strange. Jonas talks about his time on Earth all the time. I feel like I already know some of you. Samantha Carter," she paused and nodded at Sam, "and you must be Teal'c." The Jaffa inclined his head politely. "I already met General O'Neill."

But Ashlen looked at Vala in confusion.

"Vala," she supplied, "Mal Doran."

"Ashlen Ralston-Quinn," she answered, "You and Colonel Mitchell must be recent additions to the team? I'm not sure Jonas has ever mentioned you."

"Just within the last year," Mitchell said, "and call me Cam. We never met your husband."

"And you're here to find him anyway?" Ashlen seemed honestly confused.

"We're a team," Cam shrugged.

"I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for this. Our government has written them off as lost. I think they were more upset over the national treasures and artwork that are at the satellite site than the people."

"The satellite site?" Vala said, pointing backwards at the display screen. "Is that what you call this planet?"

"Is that where we sent them?" Ashlen asked.

"It's the last and only address still in the DHD," Sam answered.

"Then yes that has to be our satellite site. Jonas and a group of evacuees were the last to go through before the Prior came and disabled the Gate. That was a few weeks ago. Jonas and I were working from both sides of the evacuation. He was taking people through and getting them settled. I was gathering groups on this end. I don't know if the Prior suspected we were doing it or not but he took two crystals from the DHD and we could never get it to work again. I don't know what's happening at that end," Ashlen looked at Vala with fear and concern in her eyes, "Why did you say we can't go there?"

"Good question," Jack said in a voice that was too soft and with a look that pinned Vala to the console.

"Well, it's the current location of two warring crime lords, one of whom who used to be First Prime to a minor System Lord named Dedun."

There were several moments of silence while all of SG-1 waited for Daniel to explain who that was until they all realized that Daniel wasn't with them. Vala rushed to try to fill in the gap, searching through her memories of the brief, brutal time with Qetesh.

"He fancied himself the god of wealth, greed, accumulation. Beyond that I don't remember that much."

Sam put her hand on Vala's shoulder and squeezed. Of all of them, only Sam really understood what it cost Vala to access that time in her life. Vala could feel Cam's eyes on her too and she resisted looking up because if she saw pity or sympathy in them she would want to kill him. But when she gave in and looked there was nothing but a kind of fierce pride and admiration gazing back at her.

"T?" Jack prodded. "What do you know about this First Prime?"

Teal'c came to life with a voice like boulders rolling together. "His name is Ar'loc. I had little dealing with him. Dedun was not interested in territories or going to war and he would not have challenged Apophis. Dedun sought wealth through stealing and plunder. His methods amounted to piracy and his Jaffa were well known for it. Ar'loc is one of the Jaffa who rejected the New Nation and set out on his own. No one has heard from him in many years."

Jack took in the information and then turned back to Vala. "And this other crime lord?"

"A man named Mraisch, loosely associated with the Lucian Alliance," Vala supplied. "The planet is apparently a source of precious jewels and a rare spice prized on several worlds. Mraisch and Ar'loc have mining operations all over the planet and they are quite ruthless about it. If the Langarans went there I suspect they've all been rounded up and taken into slavery by now. It's a place I avoided at all costs, despite my fondness for rare spices and shiny things."

There was another silence broken when Ashlen blurted, "Slavery? _ALL_ of them?"

Vala realized belatedly who was in the cockpit with her. "Well possibly not all. Were they well-armed?"

"Yes, we sent a fair part of the Kelownan Guard with them. It's not like we're expecting an attack from Tirania or the Andari Federation at the moment. The only good thing about the Ori is that they finally united Langara against a common enemy."

"That's good then," Vala said, with a bright smile.

"Ashlen," Jack said, and Teal'c and Sam recognized the calm, secure, authoritative tone in his voice that was meant to convey confidence. "What's in the immediate vicinity of the Stargate on this planet?"

"A city that seemed to have been abandoned for decades. We were working to make it into a livable place again. The planet appeared to be deserted. We had no idea these-these _crimelords_ were living there."

"Is it defensible?" Jack asked.

She lifted her shoulders in a hopeless kind of way. "I wouldn't know. I never saw it and it's not my area of expertise. I can tell you that if it's possible then the Kelownan Guard would do it."

"Well there's that then," Jack said, "They're probably holed up in the city with no way to dial back to Kelowna, or possibly even get to the Gate to dial anywhere at all. Carter, put together a message detailing all this and send it back to Stargate Command. Include the Gate address but tell them not to send anyone through until we get there and find out what's going on. If I need reinforcements, I'll let them know."

"Yes sir," Sam said,

"And tell them that includes Daniel!" Jack said, forcefully. "Don't let him through that Gate unless I specifically request him."

Sam nodded, remembering what Daniel had said about joining them if Jonas was anywhere but Langara. "We could get there faster if we find the closest planet with a Stargate and Gate there," she pointed out.

Jack shook his head, looking grim. "I don't want to give up the Al'Kesh. It's got weapons and a quick means of escape. If it takes a little longer to get there then that's just the way it is."

"Understood, sir," Sam was already turning to start composing the message.

Jack gave her a proud look and said, decisively, "Then I want everyone to get something to eat, drink, hit the head and get back here in thirty minutes. We've got a rescue to plan."

(0)


	121. Chapter 121

**Something short and light to explain a few details before we go on. Mostly because I just really love snuggly Jack and Sam. ;-)**

**(0)**

Jack fell over onto his back, gasping, throwing his arm over his eyes to block the harsh overhead light. He felt Sam roll over, draping over him in a contented sprawl of beautiful long limbs.

"Are we on the floor?" He asked in a dazed voice.

"Umm, yes," Sam said. She tried to lift her head to look at him and failed.

"I don't remember falling on the floor," he admitted with a slow shake of his head.

"It was umm, not long after we started I think."

"Yeah?" Mystified.

"Yeah." Dreamy sigh. Sam spent a moment just snuggling, feeling his fingertips on her shoulder making idle whorls. "I'm surprised you wanted to do this," she said, after a while.

From the way he moved as if startled she suspected he had been on the verge of falling asleep. "Honey, I'm a guy," he said, stretching and turning over to gather her into his arms. "If you give me the _slightest_ indication you want to make love, I'm there."

Sam gave a snort of laughter. "We'll make the planet in seven hours."

"Plenty of time to recover."

"I'm not sure. That was some work out."

"If you can't keep up anymore just let me know and I'll go easier on you," Jack's voice was slurry again as he cuddled her a little closer, finding a soft spot on her shoulder to rest his head.

Sam laughed again. "I'm not the one who's almost asleep."

"Yeah, well, there was this work out and then the one before it."

She had to acknowledge that. Jack had been running them in drills as if they were new recruits, watching the team, gauging strengths and weaknesses.

Ashlen had been a pleasant surprise. She was quite good with a firearm and a zat. Jonas had insisted that she know how to take care of herself and they had gone to shoot recreationally quite often. He had taught her basic self-defense skills as well. Adding those skills to her obviously fierce determination to get her husband back made Jack less hesitant about taking her down to the planet.

Sam knew as well as Jack that they were as ready as they would ever be.

"What do you think Jett is doing?" She asked.

The change of subject made Jack stumble back to consciousness. "Jett? I think he's downstairs in front of Daniel's big screen TV making them watch Night at the Museum for the two thousandth time."

"That should be okay. Daniel loves museums."

"Two thousand times?"

"Why not?" Sam countered. "He'll survive. Jett made us watch Zathura at least that many and we managed it. Did you warn Daniel about not letting him play too many video games?"

"He knows, Carter," Jack said.

"And that he doesn't like red jello?"

"Carter! They can handle it. I wouldn't have left him there if I didn't trust Daniel."

Sam gave him a shrewd look. "And it gives Daniel another reason not to run after us."

Jack grunted and settled down again.

"I miss him." Sam admitted, quietly.

"Daniel?"

"No," Sam groaned and laughed at the same time, "Well, yes, a little. But I meant Jett."

"I miss him too," Jack said.

Sam smiled and kissed his shoulder. "If we're going to sleep for a few hours the bed might be more comfortable."

"There isn't as much room," Jack noted. The 'crew quarters' on an Al-Kesh were notoriously bland.

"True," Sam admitted.

She untangled from him and crawled over him to retrieve the sleeping bags from the solid platform that served as a 'bed'. Jack groaned and grumbled but moved enough for her to lay out the bag and collapse onto it again. Sam lay down next to him and molded her body to his.

She knew he would wake before her and slip out into the corridor to return to his own room, the one he was sharing with Teal'c. He would do that to protect them and she would accept that.

But for now she had hours to spend, wrapped up in Jack's arms.

(0)


	122. Chapter 122

They orbited the planet a few times, getting as much information from the readings as possible before Jack let Ashlen attempt to contact the planet. She failed to get a response at first and then when she finally did, it wasn't Jonas who answered. It was the Roan Vacik, commander of the Kelownan Guard.

"This is First Assistant Ashlen Quinn. Is anyone receiving this?"

"_First Assistant_?"

"Yes! I'm in orbit around the planet. Who is this?"

"_Commander Vacik. Who is with you_?"

"Our Earth allies, SG-1. Where is Jonas?"

There was a pause. "_Can you come down here_?"

Ashlen had the good sense to look at Jack and getting a nod before answering, "Yes. Stand by."

She shut off the communication and Jack said, "Saddle up, kids. We're going for a ride."

(0)

Leaving Mitchell (unhappy but dutifully following orders) on the Al-Kesh they beamed down to the location of the response from the planet. They appeared in a room that was high in a tower. It was now part of an elaborate command center. The modern equipment contrasted sharply with the ancient stone and fading murals of the tower's former life. SG-1 had arrived in a circle, back to back, weapons not pointed but drawn.

That changed a moment later when Vala put her Beretta up and pulled the safety off. As one unit, the rest of them moved to flank her, bringing their weapons to bear and pushing Ashlen to the back behind Teal'c. They were faced off with a man Jack presumed to be Roan Vacik, a silver-haired man with military bearing wearing both the uniform of the Kelownan guard and astunned, grim expression on his face.

There was another man seated behind a console. He was large, heavily-built and peering at them like a meat buyer at the pig market. It was immediately obvious to the rest of SG-1 that neither man seemed armed but Vala had her weapon pointed squarely at the seated man's forehead.

"Vala Mal Doran," he said, with his voice traveling the distance between them as if he wasn't even pushing the limit of his potential volume. "I wish I could say it was nice to see you again."

"Mraisch Bah Darrin," she said back in a lethal purr. Vala's demeanor was cool and steady and all of the team was matching her. "Still dealing in stolen spacecraft? Oh, no, wait, I heard Ar'loc ran you out of that business. It's weapons and drachnam spice these days for the Lucian Alliance. There can't be enough money in that to keep you in the style to which you had become accustomed."

Vala smirked a little at the flash of annoyance that crossed Mraisch's jowly features. Ar'loc and Mraisch had been locked in a bitter rivalry for some time now and it showed no sign of being resolved any time soon. "Put your hands on the table," she said.

"Why?" Mraisch returned blandly.

Jack spoke up "How about because, no matter what you have under the table, there are four weapons pointed at your head?"

With a sigh as if he was long-suffering, Mraisch lifted his hands and placed a small pistol on the table. He let go of it and raised his hands in a mocking surrender. No one on SG-1 lowered their weapons.

Commander Vacik finally spoke, quietly. "There isn't any need for this. I'll admit that we have a problem here but it's not one we can solve with this kind of aggression."

Impatiently Ashlen finally pushed her way passed Teal'c. "Vacik!" She said, sounding like she was stamping her foot, "What is going on here!?"

Vacik straightened up and nodded to her respectfully. "First Assistant, it is good to have you here; and we welcome SG-1. It is a great relief to see you all."

Jack lowered his Berretta but didn't put it away. The rest of SG-1 remained on alert.

"Are you in charge here?" Jack asked Vacik, because the presence of a crime lord in what was ostensibly the command center of this outpost was just a little disturbing.

"Yes," Vacik answered, "and you are?"

"General Jack O'Neill, in command of SG-1. You want to tell me what's going on here and where Jonas Quinn is. Oh, and why the hell this guy is here?"

The name meant something to Vacik. It was obvious in his eyes. He didn't quite shift or look away but it was obvious he wanted to. He opened his mouth but Mraisch was the one who answered. "I have Jonas Quinn," he said, bluntly.

Jack turned almost casually to look fully at Mraisch. Anyone who knew Jack would know that the posture and the laconic look were masking something truly dangerous. Sam, Vala and Teal'c flanked him with weapons still level with their faces.

"Well," Jack said, much too softly, "How about if you give him back?"

"It's complicated," Vacik said.

Jack studied him for a moment and then safed his weapon and put it back in its holster. Hooking a foot around the leg of a chair in front of the desk, he pulled it around and dropped down in it heavily. Setting his elbows on the arms of the chair and linking his fingers together he said, "Explain it to me."

Behind him, SG-1 hadn't moved an inch from their defensive position. Ashlen, still impatient but too intimidated by O'Neill to say anything, stood quietly and looked pleadingly at Vacik. She had gone pale at Mraisch's pronouncement of having Jonas.

Vacik began, "When the Bah Darrin Consortium-" and cut off for a moment at Vala's loud and derisive snort. Jack cast her a look over his shoulder and she subsided.

Mraisch murmured appreciatively, "Very good. Perfectly in command, both of yourself and of your people. Yes, that's good indeed."

"As I was saying," Vacik said, tightly. "When the Consortium first became aware of us, there were several attacks that ended in stalemates. Jonas Quinn decided to go talk to them and explain our situation and warn them of the Ori. Our attempts to dissuade him from going failed."

"Oh, Jonas," Ashlen sighed.

Jack exchanged a look with Sam and Teal'c and then went back to staring to Mraisch.

"So you decided to just keep Jonas Quinn," Jack concluded. "Why?"

"My daughter Sancha has been captured by Ar'loc. I want her rescued," Mraisch said, bluntly.

"I told him our military wasn't up for sale," Vacik said, stubbornly.

"What?" Ashlen snapped.

"Has Ar'loc asked for any kind of ransom?" Jack asked, calmly.

"I said she has been captured, not kidnapped," Mraisch said, contemptuously, "Do try to pay attention. Sancha was flying here for a visit when she – and the Fortune 3000 luxury space yacht she was flying – was captured by pirate gang and both were sold to Ar'loc." He stopped and looked at Vala pointedly, "I presume you're familiar with Ar'loc's distain for human females?"

"I've heard something about it mentioned a time or two," Vala conceded, wrinkling her nose.

Jack glanced up at Teal'c for confirmation. "Dedun's minions were well known for taking human female slaves."

"Then you understand why I want Sancha and her ship out of his hands. If Ar'loc figures out who he has there _will_ be ransom demands. He'll bleed me dry and then kill her anyway – probably by working her to death in his spice mine." He swept Vala and Sam with a speculative look, "He'd accept a gift such as these two-"

"Wait just a _damned_ minute," Jack said, "if you think-"

"Do you want Jonas Quinn back or not?" Mraisch said. Jack glowered at him but Mraisch went on blithely. "Send the men and he'll probably kill them outright – especially the Jaffa. Oh, yes, I recognize you too, Teal'c of Chulak. Ar'loc would have a grand time making you suffer before you die. But the women will wind up at exactly the same place as Sancha. Mal Doran has a reputation that precedes her. I have to assume the other woman with you is as good."

"And if I understand this correctly, if we get your daughter back you'll give us Jonas?" Jack's voice was low and tight.

"You're a smart man, General O'Neill, with a precise grasp of the situation."

"Is there some reason I don't just hold you here until we get Jonas back?"

Vacik cleared his throat uncomfortably. He picked up a folder on the desk and handed it to Jack. Inside were pictures of Jonas, unconscious, on a slab in a round room. Ashlen let out a gasp of horror and looked pleadingly at Jack.

"Jonas Quinn is being held in a tower room in my personal fortress," Mraisch told them, blandly. "There are automatic weapons pointed at him at all times. All I have to do is give a signal and he'll be dead in an instant."

"_General_," Ashlen said, miserably.

Jack fell grimly silent. He stood up. "Carter! Vala!" He said, "Private conversation please?"

He gave the rest of the team a look that said keep him covered and took them off to a corner of the room.

"Do you know this Sancha?" He asked Vala in a soft voice, without preamble.

"Yes. She's not involved with her father's criminal activity if that's what you're asking. She broke ties with him a long time ago and now runs and owns a business making spaceships on another planet in this system. The Fortune 3000 line is one of the best."

"There's a market for luxury space yachts?" Sam asked, stunned.

"Darling, there's an entire galaxy out here you haven't even begun to explore," Vala drawled. "There are a lot more planets than the ones connected by Stargates."

"So you think this is legit?" Jack asked.

Vala sighed, "I hate to say this but yes, his concern for her appears real."

"Carter?" Jack asked. It was the only thing he said. Sam knew what all the questions were.

"I'm willing to go in, sir" she said, "I've had all this great training from this guy in Special Forces that I know. So I'm pretty sure I can handle it; and if Vala will go in with me she brings her own special brand of expertise."

Jack turned his attention to Vala. "I can't order you to go in. You didn't even know Jonas. No one will blame you if you refuse."

"If Samantha goes in, I go with her. There's no question," Vala answered.

Jack's eyebrows were drawn together, making him look displeased. Sam knew he was forcing down frustration and anger at being manipulated like this.

"Sir," she said, softly, "We can't let him kill Jonas."

"He still might," Jack warned.

"Then we can only let it play out. Something tells me the rest of you aren't going to sit around idle while Vala and I get Sancha."

"Nope," Jack said.

He turned and went back to stand in front of the desk.

"We'll do this," Jack said, tightly, "_our_ way. But you had better be ready to hand over Jonas Quinn. If you recognize Teal'c and Vala then you also recognize SG-1; and SG-1 is _not_ an enemy you want to have."

(0)


	123. Chapter 123

Sam and Vala made their way down winding streets in one of the most derelict cities Sam had ever seen. She knew there were places on Earth that were bad. But this was breathtaking in its level of decay. The stench was overwhelming, rising in the heat from garbage and debris piled high in doorways and alleyways. The occupants of the city were a hopeless looking, shapeless mass of broken humanity, shuffling aimlessly along or sitting listlessly on doorsteps.

Sam and Vala were moving purposefully towards a blocky fortress rising imposingly at the edge of the slum. Sam wondered how much of the poverty and abuse surrounding them was a direct result of Ar'Loc's presence here.

They passed one final huddled clump of beings to get to a side door in the fortress that they had been told to go to. It was guarded by a pair of Jaffa still in the heavy armor of Dedun's army, lacking only the heavy headdress but still wearing the stylistic lion tattoos on their foreheads. They were armed with zats, which Sam recognized. Hanging from their belts was a long curled whip with an electronic handle. Vala eyed the whip with barely controlled contempt and shot Sam a warning look.

Then the look melted out of her eyes and she affected an expression of vapid cheerfulness that did absolutely nothing to hide her natural sexiness. Sam had watched Vala change colors like a chameleon before but this time it was almost devastating. Sam would have sworn she'd never met this woman at all.

"Hi there," she waved and smiled. "I have a gift for his Majestic Eminence the First Prime Ar'Loc from his brother Jaffa, Maf'ra of Drachnom."

Two sets of leering eyes swept the women. "Oh I just bet you do," one of the guards said.

"It's some kind of expensive art carving," Vala said, bringing the small package out from the inside of her sleeve.

"Fine," the other guard said, "Wait here."

Vala and Sam waited, looking and acting nervous and uncertain while one of the guards took out a lethal serrated knife and split open the box and then the fluffy packing material until he got to the marble statue inside. He examined it carefully for hidden compartments and ran a scanner over it looking for any kind of electronic signal.

Sam whispered cautiously to Vala, "What are those whips?"

"They're called neron whips. You might want to avoid anything that would make them use those," Vala whispered back.

"Are they survivable?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Vala answered, sounding grim, "You'll just wish they weren't."

Sam swallowed a little.

"All right," the guard said, handing the open box and the statue back to Vala, "In you go."

Vala looked as if she had attempted a step backwards. "C-Can't we just leave it with you?"

"Oh, no, it's a rule. All gifts are to be hand delivered by the bearer, especially when the bearers look like the two of you."

The door swung open at some unseen signal and two more guards waited inside.

"Take them to Ar'Loc."

Sam and Vala stepped inside the fortress, between two more massive Jaffa. The door snapped closed with a decisive bang, shutting out the sunlight and plunging them into almost complete darkness.

The inside of the fortress matched its dull and forbidding exterior. The interior was dark and dank and composed of twisting, rough-floored corridors lit by flickering torches. Sam didn't bother trying to keep track of the route as their two-guard escort took them deeper into the fortress. She doubted Vala was bothering with it either. Instead, they were both concentrating on assessing the overall defense structure and increasing the level of fear showing in their body language.

They reached the main audience chamber at last, to find a large, high-ceilinged room dominated by gloom, stench and general repulsiveness. Ar'loc was seated on a throne and a raised dais, surrounded by other Jaffa and women who appeared to be serving as slaves. He was huge, dark-haired and bronze skinned.

"So what have we here?" He asked, "A gift from Maf'ra?"

"Yes, You Magnificent Eminence," Vala answered, with a quaver in her hushed voice as she glanced around nervously.

Sam was doing the same thing, but they were evaluating the defensive capabilities of the room. There was ports in the walls that were most likely weapons, and a handful of guards. That appeared to be it.

"Bring it here, both of you."

Sam and Vala both stepped forward hesitantly. At some point they both knew there was going to be some kind of test to see if they were really the helpless slaves they appeared to be. It came when they had only taken three steps. Two guards unleashed their whips and with casual flicks of their wrist sent them snaking towards Sam and Vala.

Sam gasped and held up her hands uselessly in front of her face – fighting the instinctive urge to dodge or duck or roll or do _anything_ to stop the weapon from touching her. To her great relief the whip cracked centimeters short of her face. A sizzle of energy bit the air between them.

"Your Eminence!" Vala cried, "Please what have we-"

The answer came from the guards in the form of another flick of their wrists. This time the whips connected.

The lash curled around Sam's legs and yanked her off her feet. She went down screaming in a way that was not at all role-playing. The whip's current arced agonizingly through her body. She clawed at it, screaming again as it burned her fingertips. She started to shout _Stop_ and changed it to, "No, please. _Please."_

Beside her Vala was sobbing and begging.

"Defend yourself!" One of the guards laughed, tossing a pistol onto the floor beside her.

Sam got it and fought against the pain, forcing her fingers to fumble as if she had never held a weapon in her life. She clenched her teeth and fought her own training. The pistol was probably useless, just another prop in Ar'loc's sadistic trap; but if she swiveled on one hip and swung her legs around hard enough she would pop the whip's control shaft out of her attacker's hand.

But if she did that – if she showed any sign of combat training at all – she would probably die.

She got a grip on the pistol and tried to bring it to bear on her assailant, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing like a child. She sagged and let the weapon drop from her fingers. Then she toppled over as if she had fainted.

Mercifully the current shut off. Trying not to pant she heard the current in the other whip shut off and Vala crashed to the floor beside her. She could hear Vala panting and risked glancing at her.

Through gritted teeth Vala hissed at her, "_Stay down."_

"_Why?" _Sam barely opened her teeth to speak.

"_You look like you want to murder someone,"_ Vala warned.

"_I do," _Sam growled.

"_Don't come up until you don't!"_

From above them, conversationally, Ar'loc said, "That was a lesson. Now that you know the whip's power, I safely assume you don't want to experience it again."

Vala pushed up on her elbow. "No!" She gasped, "No! Please no. We'll do anything. Just don't…don't-" The words came out mangled, barely recognizable in her sobs.

Rough hands reached down and untangled the whips from around the women's legs. Vala got a hand around Sam's arm and they struggled to their feet, swaying together for a moment. There was another brief flare of warning in Vala's eyes and Sam remembered in time to look frightened out of her mind instead of spitting mad. They both took a moment to make sure their legs were really working and then let them buckle so that they collapsed again to the floor.

Guards seized them both and hauled them up. Wobbling and trembling, Vala and Sam stood, staring at the floor and holding hands.

"You both belong to me now," Ar'loc's voice boomed, imperiously. ""Your lives are mine. If you please me you will survive. If you don't please me then there will be neron whips on full charge wrapped around you for the remainder of your short and miserable existence. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-yes, sir," Vala whimpered. When Sam didn't answer, Vala dug her fingernails into Sam's palm.

Sam bit back a gasp of surprise, turned it into a sob and looked at the floor with her shoulders hunched in the helpless display of a beaten animal.

"Good." He waved a hand at the guards, "Take them to the slave master," he said, dismissively, "Tell him to do with them whatever he wants."

(0)


	124. Chapter 124

The spice mine was in the lowest level of the fortress. It was a cave system in which the women worked beneath grated metal walkways patrolled by guards carrying neron whips. The spice came from the fruiting of an underground fungus that grew all along the walls like ugly bulbous tumors. There were perhaps fifty women wearing headlamps, working side by side harvesting the fruit. Torches provided the only other light. In that dim light Vala and Sam could see the blank, hopeless expressions on the faces of the women.

"I'll explain this only once," the slave master said. "Your job is to carefully pry loose the fruit from the fungus and place it inside the baskets on the wall. Do not drop any of them or harvest them before they are ripe. The fungus takes a very long time to come to fruition and we just _hate _wasting any of them." He pointed at both of them with the handle of his whip. "Understood?"

Vala swallowed and forced herself to shrink back from him. "Y-yes," she whispered.

"How do we know if they are ripe?" Sam asked.

"They go from having a smooth surface to one that is rough. Get one of the other slaves to show you," he leered pointedly at Sam, "Your hair is an unusual shade. Would you consider trading it to me?"

Sam's eyes grew wider. "S-selling it? For what?"

"Favors," the slave master shrugged. "Extra food, water. Other considerations."

Sam didn't have to fake the shudder that went through her at the thought of her hair in that man's hands. It was utterly abhorrent. In what she hoped was a timid voice with her eyes downcast to hide the revulsion, she said, "C-can I think about it?"

He smirked at her and she knew he could probably just take it if he wanted to. Clearly this was just another sadistic game. "If you wish. But don't take too long. It's not like hair does you much good in here." He stated to turn away and then said, "Oh, and one more thing. The fruit attracts a particularly nasty insect that doesn't take kindly to having its meal taken away. If they get their mouth palps into your skin you'll need a trip to the med bay to get them removed."

"Oh," Vala said, in a very tiny voice. Sam knew what she was thinking. That was actually very useful information. "Does it hurt?"

"No more than the whips," the slave master answered, with a slow evil smile. Then without warning he pushed both Sam and Vala off the walkway. Sam managed to keep her balance and land in a crouch on her feet, remembering at the last minute to fall over sideways. Vala, either by accident or design, landed on her side. Sam crawled over to her and helped her to stand up. They stood swaying as if they were injured.

"You don't play the helpless female easily do you?" Vala observed softly.

"Not at all," Sam admitted.

"Try harder," Vala said, through gritted teeth. "Men like these, if they see a flash of your steel backbone, they'll spend a lot of time and effort trying to break you; and I don't think you'll break easily, Samantha."

A neron whip cracked over their heads in warning. Sam and Vala both flinched away from it. Two helmets were tossed down to them. As they flipped on the lights and snapped on the helmets, Sam said, "I'll take that side. You take this one. Stay close and let's find Sancha and get the hell out of here."

"Sounds like a plan," Vala agreed.

The whip lashed again, closer this time. Jaw clenched with determination, Sam turned, faced the vile looking wall and got to work.

(0)

After hours of nauseating, back breaking work, Sam finally slipped up beside someone who looked shockingly like the pictures Mraisch had shown them.

"Are you Sancha?" She asked, softly.

The other woman looked up at her, suspicion evident in her eyes. "Yes. Why?"

Sam glanced around cautiously but none of the guards seemed interested in their conversation. She risked glancing over her shoulder and hissing sharply, "Vala!"

Vala sidled over to them and Sam said, "This is Sancha."

"Ah," Vala said, "Finally. A close relative of yours sent us to get you out of here."

If they had expected some kind of surprise or joy they were disappointed. "Did he really?" Sancha said, with dark scorn. "How very nice of him."

Sam and Vala exchanged a look. "You don't seem pleased," Vala observed.

"Oh I'm overjoyed," Sancha drawled. "It's just somewhat tempered by my familiarity with my father. What are the two of you? Mercenaries."

Knowing Sam was about to protest, Vala said, "Something like that."

"Oh then let me guess, he told you how important I am to him and how he had to get me back and then he turned up the heat and either bribed, threatened or manipulated you into doing this."

"Close enough," Sam admitted.

"So even though he seemed to want his dearest daughter back he made it very clear that he wants the ship I was flying back too? Am I right?"

Vala nodded. Mraisch had made sure they had all the access codes and flight instructions – not that Vala would need those – in case Sancha was incapacitated and they had to fly it out.

"What is he paying you?" Sancha asked, conversationally. She filled a bucket on the wall and began raising it to the walkway.

"Your father has one of our colleagues. He's agreed to give him back in exchange for you," Sam answered.

Sancha snorted. "So now he's a kidnapper too. It's nice to know there isn't a level too low for him. I wouldn't count on getting your friend back that easily."

"We actually aren't," Vala said, blithely, "But that doesn't mean we won't get you out of here. Unless you aren't interested in coming with us. In which case, Samantha and I will just get out your way and be on ours."

Sancha yanked a fruit out of the middle of the pulpy fungus and said, "If it's all the same to you, I'll tag along. What did you have in mind?"

"Where will they take us from here?" Sam asked.

"To a pretty disgusting communal barracks. There are mats on the floor and they'll feed us, if you can call that slop food. They let us wash up, such as it is and then we eat and then lights out."

For the first time, both women noticed a glimmer of hope in Sancha's voice.

"Surveillance?" Sam asked.

"Some obvious cameras; probably some non-obvious ones too. Not sure why. There's nowhere to go."

"How long until the shift ends?" Vala asked.

"Not long, less than an hour," Sancha answered.

Vala and Sam exchanged another look. "Good," Vala said, "We've got a couple of things to do first and then we'll catch up with you in the barracks. Do what you normally do. Don't attract suspicion."

Sam and Vala moved off, tackling a section of the wall that was untended by the other women.

"What'd you have in mind now?" Sam whispered.

"Follow my lead," Vala answered.

Vala watched the walkway above them carefully and waited until one of the guards were close, glancing up to eye the whip he was casually flicking in the air. She let him get very close and she could feel Sam growing tense beside her, waiting. At the last second before the guard was above them, Vala yanked her hand back from the wall and let out a spine-curdling scream.

"Oh god _oh god_! It _bit_ me," she shrieked piteously, "Help me! Get it out! Get it out!"

(0)


	125. Chapter 125

Sam rushed to Vala's side and knelt down as the other women around them fled in different directions.

"What the hell are you doing?" She hissed anxiously.

"Getting us into the med bay," Vala answered.

Without any further explanation, Vala grabbed Sam's hand, and jabbed the point of a tiny knife into her ring finger twice. Sam let out a shriek that was more outrage than pain and then she found out how strong Vala really was when she tried to pull her hand back.

"Hold still and keep screaming," Vala instructed. They could hear the heavy boot steps of a guard running down metal stairs and coming in their direction. "Don't worry. It's dead."

"_What's_ dead?" Sam demanded and then it all became clear as Vala jammed the pincers of a very disgusting insect into the holes she had made in Sam's finger. Sam let out another holler of fury.

"Can you _please_ try to sound frightened!" Vala begged.

The guard was getting closer, boots ringing on the damp floor in agitation. Sam collapsed on the floor next to Vala, putting pressure on her bleeding finger and fighting the urge to yank the vile looking bug out. Even if it was dead and not pumping venom into her, it was gross. But she didn't know what the effect of pulling out the pincers would be so she left it there.

"You could have warned me," Sam complained.

"You're a horrible actress, darling," Vala answered. She stopped talking and began moaning and crying, rolling on the floor as if she was in terrible pain. It was then that Sam saw an identical wound with an identical bug attached to the inside of Vala's left arm.

Sam gave up arguing lest they be overheard and – mindful of Vala's warning about how hard these men would work to break her - made do with hunching over on the floor breathing hard and biting her lip.

The guard reached them, seized a wrist in each one of his huge hands and hauled them to their feet. Vala was still carrying on as if she was trying for a best dramatic actor award. Sam gasped – mostly from the stench coming off the guard – and tried to pretend she was passing out. The guard caught her under the arm and pulled her forward, a movement that pushed her up against the knife on his belt. It would be so easy to grab it and plunge it into the gap just below the edge of his upper body armor. Sam's fingers itched as she resisted the instinct.

"Get your hand out of the way!" He snapped at Vala, twisting her arm around to see the wound on it with the insect body hanging from it. As Vala cried out again from the rough treatment, he swore in the language Sam recognized as Goa'uld.

The grip on Sam's wrist tightened to the point of pain as he jerked her hand around, pulling her even closer. The hilt of his knife brushed against Sam's other hand. Sam glanced away and into Vala's warning look.

"Useless fledglings," the guard growled.

He let go of them so suddenly they both stumbled and Sam nearly fell. They were shoved in the direction of the stairs and then prodded all the way back up to the walkway. They were then shoved into the ungentle arms of one of the other guards. Neither man appeared to be anything but annoyed by the situation. Apparently it happened often enough not to raise suspicion.

"Get them to the med bay," he snarled, "and tell Cian to be careful this time. Ar'loc isn't going to like it if he loses two more on their first shift. Not after last time."

Sam and Vala were dragged unceremoniously out a door and into another dingy corridor. Vala continued to moan and sob like a broken slave. Sam continued to act like she was barely conscious, keeping her head down and her eyes half closed. She suspected that Vala's overly dramatic act was to keep the focus off of Sam, for which she was grateful.

After the darkness everywhere else, the med bay was so clean and brightly lit that it hurt their eyes. Apparently it was tough to keep healthy slaves down in the spice mine. The guard pushed them inside and then slammed the door. The medic – presumably Cian - was also a surprise. He was a tired looking middle-aged human in a shabby lab coat.

"Up on the table, one of you," he said, with a listless gesture in the direction of the sole piece of furniture in the room.

Vala leaned over and whispered to Sam, "Keep his attention."

Sam gave a barely discernable nod and staggered to the table, pulling herself up on it with shaking arms. The medic took Sam's hand in his with surprising gentleness. He examined it carefully and then said, "The hajsu appears to be dead. That's odd."

"Maybe I killed it when I was trying to get it off?" Sam asked, timidly. She looked up at him through her lashes. She might not know how to be a helpless female but she knew how to flirt.

"Hmmm," he said, "Maybe. It would explain why the puncture wounds are so large. Did you shake your hand?"

"I think so," Sam said, "Was that bad?"

"It isn't good," the man sighed.

He walked over to the counter of vials and bottles and boxes where Vala was leaning over pathetically, whimpering, "It hurts. It hurts."

Cian patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Yes I know. It's not an easy life down there."

"Why are you here?" Sam asked, drawing his attention back.

Cian came back to the table and began swabbing her finger with a numbing solution. A moment later he had used tweezers to pull the bug away. Sam couldn't stop the sigh of relief or the grateful smile. Cian stared for a moment before answering her question. Sam had seen that 'stop and stare' reaction before. She ducked her head and smiled again shyly.

"I was captured years ago," he said, "They let me live when they found out I had medical training. I've been here ever since." He paused to shrug, "It isn't a bad life. It's better than what they do to the women and a million times better than what they usually do to the men."

When he started to glance over at Vala again Sam cried out as if she was in pain and clutched his hand.

"I'm sorry!" He said, quickly, and Sam saw the measure of compassion and puzzlement in his expression. "There shouldn't be any more pain."

"It's all right," she whispered, "I'm sure you didn't mean it."

"Are you ever going to help _me_?" Vala whined.

Cian started as if he had just remembered Vala was in the room, in spite of her continuous moaning.

"Yes, come here," he said. Sam let him help her hop down from the table and waited quietly while he worked on Vala's wound. Vala didn't even try to flirt with him. She simply stayed in character as piteously broken, whining and complaining through the entire procedure.

When he was done he banged on the door. It slid open to reveal the guard.

"They're both fine. No permanent damage," he said.

"Then let's go, fledglings," the guard sneered, "Nice work getting out of the end of your shift! We'll have to make you work double tomorrow."

Sam and Vala shared a look as they were prodded back down the corridor with the hilt of a neron whip. They hated to disappoint the guy, but they really had no plans to even be here tomorrow.

(0)


	126. Chapter 126

The massive sleeping/eating/bathing communal room was just a revolting as Sam and Vala had expected. There were tubs along one wall that were filled with what looked more like a runny version of slime than water. Sam and Vala chose to pass on those. They joined the crush of women crowding the food line and, under the cover of the bodies pressing them close to each other, Vala carefully revealed the stash of vials and bottles in the pockets of her jumpsuit.

Sam gave a startled look of wonder. "How did you do that and what are they?" She whispered. The labels on the bottles were all in Goa'uld.

"Some useful chemicals that will make some really interesting things happen when combined. It's amazing what people will just leave sitting out on a counter," Vala said, blandly. "As to how I got them… Really?"

Sam shook her head ruefully. Vala was filling a squeeze bottle from one of the vials when Sancha came up from behind them.

"I didn't think you were really coming back," she admitted.

"We're used to being underestimated," Sam replied, shuffling down the line and shielding Vala with her body as Vala filled a second bottle, mixing contents like a mad scientist. She couldn't read Goa'uld but she recognized certain chemical smells and had gotten an idea what Vala had in mind. To Sancha she said, "Were you brought straight here from your ship?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember the route?"

"Yes."

"Tell us."

They filled bowls with a dark brown mush and moved off to sit at the far end of a nearly deserted table. Sancha eyed them suspiciously again and Sam sighed. "We're not here for your ship, no matter if that was your father's true purpose or not. It's our way out of here and if you get knocked out we'd really rather not be lugging you along _and_ trying to figure out where we're going. Besides, there's always the possibility that _you_ will chose to leave us behind."

Sancha glared at her but Vala purred casually, "After all, it's possible. Like father, like daughter?"

Sancha hesitated a moment longer and then said, "Fine! You go out that door in the far left corner…."

When she was finished, Sam made her tell them again, just to make sure the details were all the same. The route wasn't complicated fortunately. She looked at Vala to make sure that the other woman had committed all that to memory. When Vala nodded her understanding as she filled a third bottle from two separate containers, Sam didn't make Sancha repeat it again.

"Make your way to the door and wait for what happens," Vala said, standing up. She gave Sam one of the squeeze bottles. "Use this like pepper spray if someone tries to stop you."

Sam and Vala both had small loaded P232 pistols hidden inside their jumpsuits. Along with the pistols they each had a series of lethal knives hidden in various places, one of which Vala had already used to fake their insect bites. It had been a risk but it had paid off. No one had thought to frisk two helpless and pathetic slaves. But they didn't want to reveal any of those weapons until absolutely needed.

Sam guided Sancha to the far left door as Vala made her way to the bathtubs. With a long smooth movement of her hand, Vala poured the contents of the last bottle she had filled into the water and then stepped away as quickly as she could without attracting suspicion.

Moments later the tub began to sizzle and smoke. The women who had been reduced to a state of near catatonia by their living conditions woke up enough to react to this new and inexplicable danger. They began screaming and stumbling away, milling around in utter confusion.

It only got worse when the entire tub burst into flame. Warning alarms blared. The smoke billowed up and engulfed the room, making it almost impossible to see. There were more screams and shouts, thudding footsteps and colliding bodies as the women panicked. Keeping her wits and staying low under the smoke, Vala went straight to the door to join Sam and Sancha.

"Let's go," she urged.

"What did you do!" Sancha cried.

An overhead sprinkler system came on just as they were ducking into the bleak hall.

"A little chemical reaction," Vala said. "It shouldn't do any real damage."

Coming to see what the pandemonium was all about, two guards were racing down the hall towards them.

"Where do you think you-" One of them began

He never got any further. Sam sprinted forward, sprayed one of them in the face and then kicked him solidly in the jaw when he went over howling in pain and clawing his eyes. Behind her she could hear Vala's attacker screaming and swearing viciously. Sam's kick sent her assailant staggering backwards. Before he could recover at all, Sam launched off the ground, drove both feet into his chest and slammed him into the stone wall. He went down like a sack of rocks and stayed down.

Sam turned to see if Vala needed any help. But she was too late. Vala was already kneeling over the second guard with and pulling his own knife out of his ribs. She wiped it on the guard's pants, took the whip off his belt and then stood up. She met Sam's eyes grimly and then looked pointedly at the knife and whip still on the other guard's belt. Sam pulled them both off, added them to her own pockets and said, "Let's keep moving."

Sam and Sancha started to run and then realized Vala wasn't with them.

"Vala!" Sam shouted.

"Just a second," Vala said. "Keep running! I'll catch up."

Sam remembered the chemical smells she had detected and nodded, hurrying Sancha ahead of her urgently. "Move!" She said. "Move."

Vala took two of the vials and poured them together into one. One she dropped to the ground, discarded. She gave the other a rapid shake and then threw it as far back down the hall as she could.

The explosion that came a moment later briefly knocked them sideways, caused them to stagger and grab each other before regaining their feet. Behind them they could hear the avalanche of walls and ceiling collapsing.

They headed at a dead run down the corridor until they came to an intersection. Another pair of guards was coming towards them, who stood gaping in astonishment for a moment before fumbling for their whips. Before they could get them in position Vala's whip crackled to life, snaked out and caught them both around their necks. They bellowed even louder than the previous pair as they fell into a flailing tangle of arms and legs, clawing at the whips. Vala plucked a replacement whip from one of them and stood up.

Sam was staring at her with raised eyebrows. "Qetesh liked whips," Vala explained with a shrug.

They could hear what sounded like pursuit, so Sam urged them forward again. Taking the lead, Sancha said, "This way. It's just up here, then turn right, up the stairs and out the first door. Unless they cracked the codes and moved it, the ship should still be there."

They ran, taking stairs two at a time and burst through the door onto a rooftop landing pad. There were several dozen ships there but Sam, eyes struggling to adjust to the fading daylight, recognized the space yacht from pictures.

"Wait," Vala said. She turned and tossed the last of the bottles down the stairs. They were shutting the door just as the muffled boom sounded below them.

The massive forms of many guards were running towards them.

"Get down!" She shouted, pushing Sancha behind a stack of boxes.

Whips snaked towards them, but no weapons fire. The boxes hissed and sizzled where they were touched by the expended current being flung outwards by the whips. Sam sat down, pulled up her pant leg and pulled out her P232 out of her boot. It wasn't the kind of weapon that would knock a full grown man off his feet, so it was going to have to be single head shots at moving targets.

Shouldn't be a problem.

She stood up in a single smooth motion and began firing, littering the ground in front of her with bodies of oncoming guards. Righteous fury filled her with a kind of icy, deadly calm. Retribution for the degraded women in the mine below, for the piracy and murder and the cold hearted treatment she and Vala had been given and the danger they'd all had to face steadied her already rock-steady aim.

When she stopped firing there was no one left breathing but Sam, Sancha and Vala. From behind another stack of crates Vala said, breathlessly, "Remind me never to piss you off."

Sam pulled Sancha to her feet and they made a straight, running line for the yacht. Sancha keyed the access codes and they followed her to the cockpit. She took a seat at the console and Sam dropped into another one. Vala stood behind them, peering out the forward viewer.

Sancha was firing up the ships systems as Sam asked, "So what's so special about this ship?"

"Are you kidding? What planet are you from? This is the prototype model Fortune 3000 luxury space yacht. It's about three times past state-of-the-art. It's got a flight system that can outfly just about anything else on the market, every luxury known to exist, ultra energized shielding and a crazy, unbelievable weapons system and targeting array-"

"Weapons system?" Sam interrupted. She was staring in frustration at the undecipherable console in front of her.

Sancha stopped flipping switches long enough to indicate a panel of keys in front of Sam. "Here," she said.

The ship's engines were beginning to whine.

"Here comes the reinforcements," Vala noted grimly.

A group of guards was pouring out the door and heading in their direction.

"Hold the ship steady," Sam said. "There might be kickback."

Sancha shook her head. "Not from this ship."

Experimentally Sam pressed a few of the keys on the pad. The Fortune 3000 spat red bolts of energy from ports on both sides. The bolts pounded into the wall of the Fortress on either side of the door and the whole thing came down in a thunder of falling stone and mortar.

Sam paused and watched the damage until the last bit of dust and debris began to settle. "Cool," she said.

The guards who were not crushed instantly staggered forward, rallied and began coming towards them again.

"They're nothing if not persistent," Vala observed.

Sam made a sound of grim agreement as she played once again with the keys on the console.

"Are the shields up?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Sancha answered.

"Good," Sam replied.

The ship was lifting off the ground as its weapons fired again. This time Sam targeted a nearby attack fighter ship. It exploded in a violent yellow fireball.

"Take us around," Sam ordered, in that voice she knew would be obeyed without question. "I think I've got the hang of the weapons."

The luxury yacht made a slow graceful circle, hovering just off the ground and spitting red destruction at the surrounding ships, turning Ar'loc's potential pursuit craft into smoking, melted slag.

When every ship was destroyed, Sancha fired thrusters and took the ship up in a steep ascent that pushed Sam back in her seat and had Vala clinging to their chairs.

Leaning over Vala whispered to Sam, "You enjoyed that."

Sam glanced up at her and answered, "You have no idea how much."

(0)


	127. Chapter 127

Once they were in an orbit geosynchronous with the Kelownan settlement, Sancha put the Fortune 3000 on autopilot and Sam remotely beamed them all back to the Al'Kesh. The ship was deserted but Sam and Vala knew where the men had gone.

Sam hit the communications station and radioed Jack.

"General O'Neill, this is Lt. Colonel Carter. Over."

"_Go ahead, Carter. Over,"_ Jack's voice came back.

"Mission accomplished, sir. We're all back on board the Al'Kesh. Over"

"_Bravo Zulu, Colonel. Over"_

Sam smiled a little. "AFI, sir. Over"

"_Requesting air support on our signal. Over."_

"Roger that. The other team? Over."

In typical understated fashion Jack said, "_Is in position and on the move. Stand by to give them air support if needed. Over."_

"Roger that. Good luck. Carter out."

"_O'Neill out_."

Sam shut down the comm and let out a long relieved sigh. They didn't have Jonas yet but everything was in motion and step one was already accomplished.

Sancha spoke up. "This boat have anything that looks like food and running water?" She asked hopefully.

"Yes it does," Vala said, cheerfully. "Previous to seeing the slop you've been eating I would have hesitated to call what we have food. But I suppose it will seem like a banquet now."

"Hot water first?" Sancha asked.

Sam wrinkled her nose and nodded. "Yeah. I think we should. But someone has to stay on the comm. Vala, you and Sancha go, and then I'll go when you get back."

Playfully, Vala said, "Roger that. What does AFI mean anyway?"

"Awaiting further instructions," Sam explained.

"Couldn't you just, you know, _sa_y that?"

"Vala," Sam said, warningly.

"Oh fine," Vala sighed, knowing she wouldn't get a straight answer.

As they left Sam said loudly, "You really should learn all the lingo, you know."

Vala's polite laughter drifting back down the hall was Sam's only answer.

(0)

For the second time Jack signed off on a radio communication. This time he had spoken to the SGC team sent as back up and confirmed that their mission had also been successful. He nodded at Teal'c and Mitchell.

"They've secured the target. The defenses around Jonas should be down."

Mitchell was peering over the edge of the grass sand dune they had been using as cover.

"Is it just me or does that place look like Jabba the Hutt's palace? Sir?"

When Jack gave him a blank look, Teal'c said, "_Star Wars. Return of the Jed_i." He swiveled his head to Cameron and explained, "O'Neill has only seen the first one."

"_Phantom Menace_?" Cam asked. "Oh no, you mean S_tar Wars: A New Hope_. Really? Sir!"

"Yes, Mitchell, really," Jack said, drily. He looked around, assessing their location for the fifth time since arriving. They had discussed a dozen different means of entering the palace but now that they had air support from the Al'Kesh, things had changed, "It'd make a nice summer home," he observed, "Great ocean view. No neighbors. Great sunsets. Any ideas on how we get in? Without using the Force, I mean."

"How about we just knock, sir?" Mitchell asked. "It's only polite and if the defenses around Quinn aren't a factor anymore, we can just shoot our way inside."

"Shooting our way inside does not sound polite, Cameron Mitchell," Teal'c observed.

"No, that's what I was thinking, too, T," O'Neill said. He spun a finger around in the air to clarify, "The knocking on the door thing, not that it isn't polite. But let's not knock if we don't have to."

Jack got the radio back out and said, "Carter? Over."

"_Carter here, sir. Over_."

"Can you get a lock on our position? Over."

"_Yes, sir. Over._"

"The building in front of us? Over."

"_There is a concentration of life forms and activity in front of you. Over._"

"Yeah, that's the building. We're directly in front of the door to the tower with Jonas. I want you to lay down fire as a distraction. Aim for the beach to the south of the building. It's deserted. Give me some continuous bursts until I call for a beam out. Over."

"_Yes, sir. Over."_

"Light it up. O'Neill, out."

He secured his radio and glanced at Teal'c. "Everyone, get ready."

A moment later, twin bottles of bright red energy sliced down from heaven and exploded into the sandy beach. The explosion was blinding in the dusky light of the disappearing day. Chaos erupted in the palace. They could hear shouts and running feet. The door in the base of the tower opened and a dozen armed men came pounding out, going in the direction of the beach. Two more bursts of energy sizzled into the beach, blasting sand in all directions and turning it to glass. Pandemonium ruled as men ran from the palace like bees swarming out of a hive.

"They left the door open," Mitchell observed.

"Amateurs," Teal'c said.

"Don't get cocky," O'Neill warned, "Let's go, kids."

They scrambled to their feet and sprinted the short distance to the tower just as the ground shook from additional blasts. Jack spared a moment to look at the blast pattern. Carter had drawn a straight line down the beach and was now returning, backtracking closer to the water. _Damn_, the woman could shoot.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the interior light but as the day had been sinking into the ocean the change wasn't that abrupt. There was a contingent of guards coming towards them, aiming some kind of carbine weapon. Jack thought he would just as soon not discover how deadly they were. He brought his P90 up and fired a lethal spray, sending most of them spinning into the walls before falling over. Beside Jack, Teal'c's staff weapon was speaking with authority and doing its own damage.

Mitchell simply plowed into the oncoming defense like a pile driver. He planted his right foot and spun, dispatching three of the guards with nothing more than his arms and legs.

They continued like that all the way up the tower stairs, leaving guards in assorted heaps with various parts scattered about, until they stopped meeting resistance. Finishing the distance to the door at the top, O'Neill commented, "Sodan training?"

"Yes, sir," Mitchell answered, noting to himself that - for a middle-aged guy who had been flying a desk for two years - Jack wasn't even winded.

"Pretty useful," Jack said, as they stopped in front of the only door. He nodded at Teal'c.

The Jaffa lifted his staff weapon and blew the door frame to charred fragments. It swung open as if it was drunk.

There was Jonas, just lying there, flat on his back on a slab. There was a little gray device on his forehead that had a light display across it but it was unlit.

Teal'c stood in the door, guarding it. Jack walked over to Jonas and said, "Hey, Jonas! You awake?"

To everyone's shock Quinn's eyes snapped open and his expression was completely clear.

"General!" He said, with clear delight, sitting up. "Whatever they were giving me wore off a little bit ago but I wasn't sure who it was coming up here. So I decided to pretend I was still out. What happened? How did you get here?"

"Kind of a long story," Jack said, helping Jonas stand. He was a little shaky on his legs but Jack was holding onto him anyway.

Teal'c was already on the radio. "Colonel Carter? Over."

"_Here. Over."_

"Beam us out. Over"

The radio communication was never severed. The four men simply vanished immediately in a blinding flash of blue light.

(0)


	128. Chapter 128

Jack didn't let go of Jonas immediately. Quinn was still too shaky on his feet. But a moment after they materialized on the bridge of the Al-Kesh, Sam had barreled into them for a fierce hug. Jack slipped his arm away and let Jonas cling to Sam for a moment.

"I should have known you would all come. I shouldn't have doubted that," Jonas said, quietly.

"You doubted?" Sam asked, leaning back to look at him.

"I know! Crazy huh?" Jonas grinned. "General, I don't even know how to begin to thank you."

"We'll think of something," Jack shrugged with a twinkle in his eye.

Jonas got a hearty arm clasp and hug from Teal'c and was then introduced to Mitchell, whom he thanked profusely.

"Not a problem," Cam drawled softly and meant it.

Vala and Sancha, slightly damp around the edges from their showers, joined them, which required further introductions. Jonas nodded in dawning understanding as Sancha's role in this was explained.

"You feel up to a trip to the planet?" Jack asked, "We have a couple of surprises for you."

"Well I love surprises, and I've already had a few so far, so let's go," Jonas grinned.

With Vala holding onto Sancha and Sam to Jonas, Jack hit the remote and beamed them away.

(0)

The reception in the Command Room at the Kelownan settlement was very different from the last time SG-1 had been in the room. Vacik was absent. Mraisch was tied to a chair in front of the desk and gagged. Rising from the chair behind the desk was Daniel Jackson.

"Welcome back," he said. He was smiling but everyone who knew him could feel the icy anger simmering just below his pleasant expression. "It's good to see you again, Jonas. We've secured the site and Commander Vacik is with SG-8 overseeing the evacuation to the Beta site. The ruins there should provide the Kelownans enough infrastructure for now." He nodded to the stranger in their midst, "You must be Sancha. I'm Daniel Jackson. Welcome back as well."

"Daniel!" Sam said, delighted. "SG-8?"

He nodded. "They volunteered to be the backup team. Jillian and I had a brief discussion about how it was okay for me to go if it was okay for her to go. So here I am. To make the report as short as possible: venimus, vidimus, clunes calcitravimus."

"What?" Jack asked.

Daniel looked at him over the top of his glasses and his expression said that he strongly suspected Jack knew perfectly well what he had just said. He pointedly didn't answer.

"I need to thank you all," Sancha said, "It's not every day that anyone gets the better of my father."

"I warned him," Jack said, lightly, "Playing games with SG-1 is not a good way to maintain a healthy life or any kind of power structure."

"He and I have a great deal to talk about," Sancha said, "Starting with his willingness to let me rot in a spice mine owned by his sworn enemy as long as he got his precious Fortune 3000."

"You might want to consider," Vala said, shrewdly, "that he set you up deliberately to be kidnapped so that he could take the ship _and_ gain control of your company."

Sancha's eyes narrowed dangerously. Sam spoke up. "Not just that. The targeting array on the ship did exactly what it was designed to do. While it was sitting there on that landing pad it made a complete sweep, diagnostic and recording of Ar'loc's defensive system and the layout of the fortress. I suspect he was going to use it to destroy Ar'loc once and for all, whether you were out of there or not."

While the women had been speaking, Mraisch had turned the color of a fish belly and Sancha's face turned to fury glazed stone. "You miserable, sneaky, cold-hearted manipulative _bastard_," she snapped. She took a deep breath and turned to Sam and Vala, "I know he never promised to pay you. Vala explained everything while we were cleaning up. I can't tell you how grateful to the two of you I am for getting me out of there. Name your price."

They exchanged glances and then Sam said, "We got Jonas back and that's really the reason we did it."

Sancha waved a dismissive hand. "I doubt it. You already had a plan to rescue your friend that had nothing at all to do with rescuing me. I mean it, name your price."

"If we had to have something, I'd like a copy of the ship's recording of Ar'loc's defenses," Sam said.

"Me too," Vala said instantly, "There is some serious retribution I would like to rain down on his tattooed head."

Teal'c rumbled to life. "The Jaffa would also enjoy a chance to bring him to justice." When Sam and Vala looked at him in surprise, he explained, "He is one of ours. He dishonors everything it means to be Jaffa."

Sancha threw a malicious smile at her father, whose eyes grew wide. Muffled protests came from behind the gag. "Oh, I can do better than that. Take the ship."

Sam looked stunned. "Oh we can't-"

"Yes you can. The ship is a prototype. There are already more coming out of my shipyard. _He_," she waved a dismissive hand towards her father, "never paid me for it. It's mine to do with as I please and I please to give it you."

Vala and Sam stared at each other for a long time. Then Vala said, "Well, I don't actually need it. I've got a few ships stashed all over the galaxy. But take it if you want it. I just want to be along for the ride when you take out Ar'loc."

"Done!" Sam grinned, thrilled with the idea of all that technology in her hands. She turned back to Sancha, "I'll take it. Thank you." Then she looked with question and hope at Jack because keeping that technology out of the hands of the Air Force was going to be tricky.

But Jack just shrugged. "I don't have to report your private property to anyone," he said, "We'll make it our secret."

Sam's grateful smile was dazzling.

At that moment there was a movement at the door and Ashlen came running in, out of breath and wide-eyed. "_Jonas!"_

She ran across the room and into his startled arms, throwing hers around his neck and holding on for dear life. Her mouth reached for his and he responded on instinct. They kissed with the urgency of lost love found, of heart's pain eased at last. Jonas's arms tightened around her they clung together that way until they had to come up for air.

"Hi," he said, looking down into her eyes.

"Hi, yourself," she answered.

"You're kind of pretty," Jonas went on, "Of course if my wife finds out that you kissed me like that we're both going to be in big trouble."

Ashlen laughed and nuzzled into his chest. Vala, smiling broadly, said, "Ashlen, I think I like your husband," which made everyone laugh.

"Did you hear?" Ashlen asked Jonas, "They're evacuating us to the Beta site. We'll be under Earth protection."

"Such as it is," Jack said, cautiously.

"What about Ainsley, and your parents?" Jonas asked.

"We have a cloaked ship," Jack said, "We'll go back and get as many people as we can onto it and take them there. I can't promise we'll be able to keep doing that."

"I might be able to convince the Jaffa to render assistance," Teal'c said, "though I cannot promise anything either."

It didn't matter that Teal'c could not swear to the help. Both Kelownans were smiling. "It's more hope than we've had in a long time," Jonas said, looking around at the team he should never have doubted, not even for a moment. "Thank you. From both of us. From _all_ of us."

(0)

Venimus, vidimus, clunes calcitravimus – we came, we saw, we kicked ass.


	129. Chapter 129

Epilogue

Alone on the Fortune 3000, Jack and Sam stood in the forward most part of the ship on the observation deck and gazed out at space, passing easily by them at warp speed. Jack was behind her, with his chin grazing the top of her head and his hands linked casually in front of her.

"It's totally unfair," he groused.

Sam snorted. "You need to get over this," she said.

"Well _you_ get to be the cool parent now," Jack said, grumpily. "Sure. I bought him a plane but _you've_ got a starship. How am I supposed to top that? I can't. That's how."

Sam laughed and looked up at him. "Jett isn't that shallow," she said. "He'll still love you anyway."

"Yeah, but I won't be as cool," he lapsed into a feigned, morose silence.

They had spent some time getting to know the systems after using the ship to end the reign of Ar'loc and the horror of his spice mine. Sancha was taking over the operation and vowing to run it to the highest possible standards, fully automating it as much as possible. The women who had once been slaves were receiving physical and psychiatric help and were now all full partners in the lucrative venture. Those who wanted were being relocated to their home worlds.

Sam was delighted with the technology. The ship was 30 meters long with twin warp pods that retracted when it was being flown in atmosphere. The targeting and weapons systems were everything she had ever dreamed of.

"Did I tell you the weapons tracking systems have a 'shoot back' modification that detects the angle, speed and direction of incoming enemy shots and returns fire back along the projected route? That means the pilot can literally fly and shoot with pinpoint accuracy at the same time!" She had a note in her voice that was dreamy and excited.

"You might have mentioned it," Jack said, drily.

"And the warp nacelles are just amazing!"

"Honey, it has a dining room and a pool! The escape pods are bigger than my bathroom in the condo."

"Yes, I know," Sam said, impatiently. "It's got everything. Oh, there's a laser _cannon_ that come out of the bottom and can swivel in any direction!"

It was Jack's turn to snort with laughter. He had to love a woman who was more delighted by the ship's weapons than it's gourmet kitchen. Of course, he already did love her.

"So what are you going to call it? He asked. "Fortune 3000 sounds a little….. dumb."

"That's just the model. It was never given a name," Sam answered.

"So what are you going to call it?"

Sam frowned and mused for a while, rocking his arms with her hands resting over his. "I don't know," she said, finally.

"Enterprise," Jack said, in a long, growly-purr that was overly dramatic.

Sam rolled her eyes. "No."

Jack frowned and then said, in almost the same tone, "Andromeda Ascendant. Now _that_ was a great name for a ship."

"No," Sam repeated.

"Galactica?"

Snort.

"Moya."

"What?"

"Nevermind. Slave 1."

Sam turned enough to give him a very dirty look, which reminded Jack of just how Sam had acquired the ship in the first place. "Oh. No, huh? Okay, okay! What about something that strikes fear in the hearts of your enemies? Destroyer of Suns."

"Good grief no," Sam said.

"Well, I still like naming it after you somehow. What about Smokin' Hot Blond?"

"Jack," she said, firmly.

"Blond Bombshell?"

"I will hurt you," Sam threatened.

"Gifted Wonder?"

"I can kill from a distance," she reminded him.

"Oh that'd be a _great _name!" Jack said, excitedly.

"I'm serious!"

"You could name it If Found Please Return To and then put Earth's Gate address."

"Or I could name it Jack O'Neill Is An Idiot," she smiled sweetly back at him.

"Nah. No one would believe that."

"Everyone would believe it," Sam insisted.

"Well you like the weapons so much what about Thirty Meters of Fuck You?"

"Hmm," she mused, "I kind of like that."

"Or something that will confuse the hell out of people," Jack said, "Wait! I'm One Of Yours!"

Sam tried to remain serious and lost that battle ten seconds into it. She started laughing and couldn't stop.

"What Was the Question?" He asked, with a quizzical tilt of his head.

"What to name the ship!" Sam reminded him.

"No, you could name it that!"

"I could name it a question?"

"Forty Two!" Jack said, triumphantly, "It's the answer to life, the universe and everything."

"Stop it!" Sam said, shaking with mirth.

"Or you could just make up to me for the Asgard ship you so carelessly destroyed and call it The O'Neill."

Sam stopped laughing and caught her breath. "Oh, wait," she said, eyes opening wide.

"What?" Jack frowned, puzzled because he didn't really expect her to name it after him.

"Not the O'Neill," she said. "But what about The Jarrett O'Neill?"

Jack couldn't hide the instant flash of pleasure in his eyes; or the hint of a smile that caught the edges of his mouth. But he tried anyway. "Oh great, like you're _not _already the cool parent. Now you've got a starship that's _named_ after him! He might as well go live with you now too."

"You know I'd love that but I'm gone too much," Sam said. "What do you think?"

"Of you being gone too much?"

Sam turned in his arms and smacked both hands on his chest. "Can you be serious for one minute? Please?"

"I'll try," Jack said, with as much sincerity as he could muster. "One minute might be pushing the limit."

Sam sighed in mock frustration. "I want to name the ship The Jarrett O'Neill. Yay or nay? This is the last chance you'll get to have an opinion about it."

Jack's expression went soft and mushy and sweet as melted chocolate. "I think it's the most amazing thing I've ever heard. I think I love you more right now than I ever have. You're the most ruthless felon I've ever met. You've stolen my heart, taken my breath away and robbed me of the ability to think coherently. I've fallen so hard in love with you that it scares the shit out of me. Name this ship anything you want but if you name it for Jett know that it is the greatest gift's you ever gave me."

There were tears standing in Sam's eyes by the time he finished. She had been laughing one minute and now she was choked up with an entirely different emotion.

"Well," she said, softly, standing up on tiptoe and pulling his head down towards her. "Jett's the best gift you ever gave to me, so I guess that's settled then."

They paused with their lips inches away, smiling into each other's eyes. It was unspoken but they both knew they wanted to preserve this moment, the one right before this kiss, the tiny fragment of time in which the stars passed by in streaks of light and space was cool and dark beyond the window. Jack gathered her tight in his arms, one hand lovingly cradling the back of her head. Sam might have stopped breathing entirely by the time his mouth found hers, sweet but demanding.

Sam closed her eyes and became consumed by him. She became nothing and everything. Chills ran over her and fire ignited inside her. Jack pressed closer and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He was warm and soft, fierce and powerful and she responded hungrily. Long fingers slid down the back of her neck, tracing its shape and every spot they touched was electric.

But perhaps the best part of all that was that she – Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter, who was constantly guilty of analyzing all the minutia in the world around her, just stopped thinking about anything except how she felt with General Jack O'Neill.

And it was magnificent.

(0)


	130. Chapter 130

**This is a tag to Company of Thieves. The final chapter will be Jack and Sam and will only be posted in Moonlight and Steel. The first two chapters of this tag involve Daniel so it is going to Sunshine and Shadow as well.  
><strong>

**(0)**

They were in one of Odyssey's smaller recreation room, mostly reserved for reading and games of chess and checkers. It wasn't usually crowded but once SG-1 had taken it over, no one had bothered them. Mitchell had gathered the team – overriding Jackson's grumbling complaints – because he thought that all of them were stuffing strong emotions down much too deeply. He'd watched the security video and now he knew that Emerson had been killed right in front of Sam. After prodding Daniel out of his tiny quarters and towards the rec room, Cam was pretty sure that Jackson had seen it too.

He was sharply reminded – again – that their civilian scientist had become an SGC hard ass. Cam often wondered if Jackson kept it all inside until he was alone somewhere. He'd wondered if it was Jillian who got to see him go off like a shaken soda bottle. He knew now that it wasn't the case. Daniel accepted his own actions, did what had to be done and moved on. They were living the aftermath of watching a man die in space because of actions he and Vala had taken and Daniel was just as relaxed about that as Cam had ever seen him. He'd even taken the Bridge for a while and handled it with a smart-assed sense of humor and a rough edge of arrogance.

Cam had brought up the subject of Emerson cautiously, thinking only that it was Sam who had too much buried down deep and he wanted to get at it before she let it fester.

"I feel like we should … I don't know," Cam began uncertainly. "Toast his memory or something."

"Why?" Daniel asked. His frown tightened the deep inverted V between his eyebrows, emphasized the lines beside his eyes. Cam stared at him for a moment and wanted to ask him what he meant. But he was pretty damned sure he didn't want an answer from a man with that much aggression in his suddenly very clear, very blue eyes.

"He was a good man," Cam said, tentatively. He was pretty sure Jackson couldn't argue that with that. "We lose too many of those."

Sam looked up at him, eyes bright. "We always do."

Jackson looked around the room, briefly meeting the eyes of each member of his team until he settled at last – and for the longest – on Sam. She looked away first and then Daniel stared deliberately down into his coffee.

"What's goin' on, Jackson?" Cam asked, soft but firm.

Daniel's eyes flickered back up. He hesitated a moment longer and then said, "Emerson had no business giving orders that could get people killed. He should have been buying time, making deals, looking for openings to get his ship back. He had some of the best people in the SGC on this ship, including Sam. He owed it to them to do what he could to keep them all alive."

"Kinda harsh," Cam muttered, wondering when Jackson would stop shocking the hell out of him.

"The man's dead, Daniel," Sam said.

"Yeah, Sam, I know," Daniel said, tight, hard as ice shards, "Emerson had no right putting you in danger the way he did. He had a gun pointed at him. Where did he think it was going to be pointed next if they shot him? So what did he do? He went all military hard 'line in the sand' and that was stupid."

Teal'c, calm and seemingly as emotionally detached as ever, nodded and said, "I agree with Daniel Jackson. As we saw and heard in the recordings, Colonel Emerson was most unwise in his decisions."

Sam sat up a little straighter and glared at them. "This is such bullshit. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking the General would have handled it differently? Probably better? So you're all going to hate him because he wasn't Jack O'Neill?" She challenged. "That isn't fair. No one is."

She shot a short apologetic look at Cam, but he shrugged it off. He had never claimed to be Jack O'Neill.

"I don't hate him and that's not why I'm angry!" Daniel's voice went up for the first time.

Vala had been lounging back in her chair and tapping her fingers on her mug of hot chocolate. Her eyes had been tracking back and forth among her teammates but the tone of Jackson's voice brought her upright, tipped slightly forward. Cameron tensed and prepared to step in. Vala liked trouble and she wasn't above stirring it up.

"I liked Emerson," Vala said. The group turned as one and stared at her. Eyes going wide with innocence, she looked back at them and lifted her shoulders in a quick shrug. "Well, I did." Cam let his eyes rest on her for a while. He was pretty sure what she had just spoken was the truth and he was also sure that she wasn't disturbed by having spaced the man who had shot Emerson. It was true that Anateo was no great loss to the galaxy, and Vala had acted to save Sam in the only way she was sure would work. She had just shrugged it off, more easily than Jackson, and Cam just wasn't sure whether he should find that disturbing or not.

Daniel had gotten his brief flash of temper under control again. In a carefully neutral voice he said, "Yeah, he was a good man."

In that tone of voice it was possible to put any kind of spin on the sentence. Mitchell was figuring that he meant 'good and stupid.'

Softly, to Daniel, as if they were the only two people in the room, Sam said, "You're just angry because he almost got me killed."

"Damn straight I am," Daniel said, just as softly, "and if I'm mad how do you think Jack is going to feel?"

With a slow shake of her head, Sam got up, spun around and walked out of the room. Cameron waited to see if Daniel was going after her but he was staring into his coffee again. Cam stood up, suppressing a sigh.

Surprisingly, Daniel stood up faster. "I'll go after her," he said.

Cam's eyes narrowed because he really didn't like trying to give Jackson actual orders. "I don't know," he said, uncertainly, "She's pretty upset."

"And I'm part of the reason she's upset," Daniel said. "I'll go."

Cam hesitated a moment longer. He understood that the only absolute for Daniel was the connection he allowed with the people he loved. Jackson was angry with Emerson and whether or not he'd ever cool down and regret the loss of the man he'd known, Cameron didn't know. At the moment Emerson was only the man who had put Sam's life in danger. He was focused on that and Cameron didn't know if Jackson could get unfocused on it long enough to see how badly Sam was hurting.

But that line of thought wasn't making his life any easier.

Deciding that he needed a second opinion, Cam glanced at Teal'c and got a dignified and graceful single nod. Sighing out loud this time, Cam sat back down.

"Go ahead. I'm pretty sure neither one of you is armed."

Daniel scowled at him and then shook his head dismissively as he walked out after Sam.

(0)


	131. Chapter 131

**Sam and Daniel talk, Company of Thieves after the credits continued. Posted in both Sunshine and Shadow and Moonlight and Steel  
><strong>

**(0)**

Daniel didn't have to go far. Sam was not too far down the hall, her shoulders braced against the wall, head tilted back so that she was staring at the ceiling. The artificial light turned her hair moonlight blond.

"So. Are we going to be mad at each other for very long?" Daniel asked, quietly.

Sam lowered her head and looked at him sideways. "I don't want to be. But we can't talk about …. Not like…." She broke off and gestured helplessly with her hands.

"Come on," Daniel said, taking her arm.

When it became obvious they were headed for his quarters, Sam remarked, "It's going to fire up the gossip chain if we're seen running into your room with you dragging me by the arm."

Daniel snorted in derision. "If the gossip chain was ever right Jillian and I would either have been divorced a dozen times or have a dozen kids. So I don't give a damn. It's no one's business anyway."

Sam agreed, technically. But it was the threat of rumors that had kept her and Jack from even using each other's names for ten years.

They made it to his door and Sam got the feeling he resented the way it quietly slid shut. Daniel looked like he was more in a door slamming mood.

But so was she. She dropped down onto the single bed that was attached to one wall and stared up at him.

"You can't do that in front of the team anymore," she said, "You can't make me think about Jack as…. As _Jack._ The whole damned thing has become a secret again because he doesn't want Vala to know."

Daniel opened his mouth, shut it, sighed and sat down on the bed attached to the opposite wall.

"I'm sorry," he admitted. "I'm pissed as all hell at Emerson for risking you like that; for getting the Odyssey commandeered like that in the first place if I really had to make a list of all the things I'm mad at right now. But I was _there,_ Sam. I was on Abydos for the first mission and I remember a man who was just too damned focused on dying to look for another answer. I don't want to ever look at Jack and see that again. I don't want to have to pick him up and see how many pieces fit back together; not while trying to deal with how devastated I'd be at the same time."

"Don't you think I know that?" Sam asked, looking frustrated, "When Anateo had that gun on me right before you and Vala…. dealt with him, all I could think of was Jack and how he would react. All I could think was that maybe we should never have let it get this far. Maybe it would be easier for him if there was still some distance between us. It made me wonder if this whole thing is just _wrong_."

"You don't really think that," Daniel looked like the anger had just finally run out him.

"I do!" She said. "I don't know how to even face him after this. He heard the message with the shot that killed Emerson. All he knew was that shots had been fired. He's been waiting all this time to find out what happened to me. By now he's gotten the rest of the story in the form of the communication burst we sent. I know how pissed you are at Emerson and I think that anger is going to pale in comparison to Jack's reaction."

"He's not going to take that out on you," Daniel said. "He's just going to want to make sure you're all right." Sam bit her lip and looked away. "You _are_ all right, aren't you?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "He's all I can think about."

For the first time in a while Daniel actually fought back a smile. "I know. It's like that when you're in love. Like, it doesn't matter what I went through. I survived it. But Jillian…. I don't ever want anything that happens to me to hurt her. I just don't know how to stop that. I can't stop loving her and I know you can't stop loving Jack; and I know he adores you."

"We felt that way for eight years and never acted on it. I just think now that maybe we shouldn't have. All I had to do was tell him that he had nothing to do with my break up with Pete and he would have left. We'd have gone on as if nothing had happened. It was our pattern and it worked."

"Love isn't an equation, Sam. It's just not that easy." Daniel sat forward, leaning his elbows on his legs and clasping his hands in front of him. His eyes became deep and soulful. His voice dropped into the low timber he used when telling a story, revealing something of himself to the listener, "When I first realized I was starting to feel something for Jillian, I had only just lost Sha're. I told myself over and over that I was just lonely and reacting out of that loneliness. She had become really special to me. I'd find myself reaching for the phone to tell her something, or calling her to my office just to watch her eyes light up with discovery. I'd leave her with projects I didn't trust with anyone else.

"Eventually I realized that love wasn't a 'maybe' thing. Either I was in love with her or I wasn't. I knew it was different than what I felt for Sha're and it always will be. But then when we – SG-1- almost died literally in Hell and I thought 'what if something happens to her out there? What if I never get the chance to tell her how I feel and see if she feels the same way and what might we never have if I don't say something? I'll be the first one to tell you that I've sometimes regretted that, and it's only because of what she's gone through. But I wouldn't, I _couldn't_ give her up and she says she feels the same way about me. I know you don't really regret letting Jack into your life and I doubt that this is going to make him feel any different."

"So grief and fear are the price we pay for being in love?" Sam asked, looking just as soulful and contemplative as Daniel.

"In a way," Daniel said, "That's love, Sam. When eight years later the pain doesn't stop and the fear doesn't go away until you know the one you love is safe. All you and Jack have to do is what Jillian and I can do without thinking – make each other know that everything is all right. I know he's going to be mad as hell at Emerson and there's nothing he can do about it. There's nothing _I_ can do about except be mad. SG-1 and all its extended members almost suffered a huge and irreplaceable loss. We're all scared by that. But you can't let this make you rethink everything you've done the last two years. True love is being willing to take the risk that it won't end 'happily-ever-after'."

"What if I really want it to?" Sam asked, softly.

"Then don't be afraid to set your sights on that," Daniel smiled. "I'm pretty sure that's what he wants too. You said that all you can think of is him. At the moment, I bet all he can think of is you."

Sam fell silent, worrying her lower lip and looking anxious. Finally she said, "I want to be strong for him. I don't want to fall apart."

"You have a team for falling apart on," Daniel said, "and apparently I have a team for venting anger I can't direct anywhere else. I'm sorry you got caught in the crossfire. I hate that I was angry about almost losing you and it wound up getting you upset. That's hardly a good way to be there for you."

"You're one of my best friends, Daniel. You're always there for me. I'm extremely honored to be one of the people you care so much about."

Daniel got up and went to his long coat, which was hanging on the wall. "Well," he said, "My wife, who is very wise in the ways of love and friendship, sent me with something for you." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a blue-wrapped bar. "Ghirardelli sea salt caramel. She said it's your favorite."

Sam's eyes grew wide. "You've had chocolate for me and didn't _immediately_ give it to me?"

"I was waiting for the right time." He sat down next to her and watched her open it. After a few bites that looked like it was just shy of heaven for her, Sam said,

"Thanks, Daniel."

Daniel just smiled. Apparently it was true that the only thing better than a friend was a friend with chocolate.

(0)


	132. Chapter 132

This is the final tag to Company of Thieves.

(0)

It was very late before they got to leave the base. Odyssey had beamed them to Landry's office, where they had given a very short verbal report and then been ordered to get some rest before reporting back the next afternoon. Daniel had offered to drive Sam home but she really just wanted to get behind the wheel of her Volvo and lose herself in the machinery for a bit. She had talked to Jack briefly on the phone and then Jett and they had both seemed fine. She had assured herself that he was fine. But something in his voice nagged her all the way down the freeway and into her driveway and even while she was putting her key in the door. She kept hearing Daniel saying that he never wanted to have to pick all the pieces of Jack to see if they could be put together again.

She was tired and distracted. She had reached the point where she was just numb after everything that had happened and she was thinking about a hot bath and a glass of wine when she realized the mat in front of her door was sideways.

Hands shaking, she pushed the door open and called, "Jack?"

It was possible he wasn't here, that the wind had pushed the mat away from the door. She had just spoken to him an hour ago and he hadn't said a word about coming. She heard the hope and fear mingled in her voice and couldn't quite call out to him again, in case he really wasn't there and all she heard in response was her own echo.

"Right here," his voice answered from the end of the darkened hall. Sam flipped on the light to find him standing there in jeans and a t-shirt, legs braced, hands at his sides, looking hesitant and powerful all at the same time. There was a slight shift in the silence, as if the past and the present overlapped; when the relationship they had once had was still there in the room with them and neither dared to move.

Then Jack held out his arms and she was running. The way Jack held her always turned her bones to water and her heart to helpless mush: arms tight, face in her hair, eyes closed, swaying just slightly. Their hugs were always perfect, an easy synchronization of limbs, arms wrapping around waists and shoulders exactly as they should. No matter how long she stood in his embrace it was never long enough.

"When did you get here?" she asked, breathlessly, clinging to him, nearly lifted off her feet.

"We flew in this morning," he answered in a husky whispered, close to her ear. "Wanted to surprise you."

"We?"

"Jett," Jack said. "He's at Daniel's. He stayed there all day while I went over the reports with Hank."

Sam tipped her head back enough to look at him. "You didn't bring him?"

"He's asleep. We'll get him in the morning. I wanted to make sure you were all right." His brow furrowed. "Are you all right?"

Sam nodded and his arms got even tighter. She wasn't sure why for a moment, until she remembered that there were two of them in the relationship and Jack had been completely freaked out for days wondering if she was alive. He startled her by suddenly picking her up off the floor. Sam's arms automatically went up around his neck as she let him carry her to the living room. He sat down in her big comfy chair and settled her into his lap. For a long time he just held her cradled there, her head on his shoulder, his face still hidden in her hair. Sometimes his hands moved, idly caressing, stroking down her back, but never to indicate any kind of arousal. It was only comfort, reassurance. Sam wished the he would say something sarcastic, or even express the frustration or anger she could feel simmering inside him. She wasn't sure what to do with this quiet man who was sitting so still. Except for the occasional movement of his hands, all she could feel was his heart beating in his broad chest and his breath stirring her hair as it whispered against her neck.

"I'm really all right," she said, finally. "Jack, look." She pushed against him until his head came up again. "I'm fine. I was scared but I've been scared before. It isn't fatal. I'm here now." She tried smiling at him reassuringly. "See? There isn't anyone here who needs to be saved."

The shadow that fell over him and suddenly haunted his eyes took her breath away. Sam was sharply reminded that hearts were fragile, and once torn, not easily mended. The emotions on his face shifted rapidly, blink-of-an-eye glimpses of things he usually kept hidden even from her.

"Yes," he said, quietly, "there is."

He had told her once that losing her, or losing Jett, would end him. She had thought it was hyperbole at the time. She had come close to death a few times in the last two years and Jack had not reacted like this. The difference this time seemed to be that he had heard the shot and then waited for days to find out who had died.

"Jack," she murmured and put her arms around his neck again, pulling him close.

Sam knew Jack was feeling everything that all of SG-1 was dealing with – the extreme relief that it hadn't been her and the deep regret at the loss of Emerson, and like Daniel, Jack was furious with the man at the same time. She was suddenly very grateful to Daniel for getting angry and not being afraid to express it. It had prepared her to handle Jack's anger. One of the things that bound Jack and Daniel together was their mutual inability to suffer fools, lightly or otherwise.

Add that to being reminded of all that he had lost before and it was no wonder that Jack seemed unwilling to move. Jack lived with memories that made him bleed internally. The slightest movement might cut him open.

Stronger than any man she knew, larger than life, a man among men and a true hero – and almost losing her made him fall apart.

Sam had no idea how to get him through those emotions and out the other side. She was putting on a brave front. But, in spite of the protestations of being fine, her own emotions were still pretty raw.

"I can stand down for a while," she said. "We can get away, take Jett to the cabin. We don't have to deal with all this now. Let's take it one thing at a time."

"There's a memorial service for Emerson in three days. I told his family I would be there," Jack answered.

Sam stroked a hand down his face and then pressed her cheek against his. "I know. That's in three days. We don't need to worry about that right now. Why don't we just try to get some sleep? You look exhausted."

Jack seemed to sigh. He did need to sleep. He'd been running on about two hours ever since he'd heard the message with the gun shot. Last time it had been three hours, the time before that four; next time it'd be an hour a night, and after that he'd just give up trying to sleep at all, for however long it took to get her back in his arms.

Sam pushed against his cheek, rubbed it with hers. "I just want to get into bed with you and let you hold me. Is that okay tonight?"

"Anything you want is always okay," he answered.

She got up off his lap reluctantly and pulled him up by the hand. They got to the bedroom and let go long enough to simply shed clothes. Jack kicked his into a pile and then yanked the sheets and blankets out of the way with slightly more force than really necessary. Sam went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth and put her clothes in the hamper. She started to reach for the nightgown hanging on the back of the door and abandoned it. She was too tired for sex, but not for skin.

What they both needed was comfortable, spontaneous love-making for its own sake, whenever the mood struck. But they could never get that with fifteen hundred miles between them. The truth was that she wanted Jack, the same way she always did. But she had no emotions to give at the moment and he had too many.

She crawled gratefully onto the bed and collapsed in his arms. They pressed close, fit their bodies together front to front. Jack moved his hand down over Sam's back, over her hip, traced the curve of her backside and down her thigh as far as he could reach. He seemed to need as much warm, bare skin against him as he could get, as much Sam as possible, closer. She'd given him blanket permission a long time ago to touch her wherever he wanted, but he was still cautious. His other hand covered Sam's shoulder blade, thumb stroking, and it was better for Sam than orgasm, that touch. It was better than almost anything.

Sam put her hand on his face and moved up so that she was barely centimeters from him. She nuzzled, kissed lightly, inhaled him. Then she leaned her forehead against his, bone on bone.

"You're not really fine," he said, quietly.

"I'm tired," she sighed, "I don't want to stop going out there. I love being out there. But I want to explore. I want to discover. I want to learn. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm tired of fighting."

"You've been more soldier than scientist for nearly a decade, against two enemies at a time, it seems," Jack noted. Warm lips grazed her forehead before he leaned forward again. The arm around her shoulders bent up so that his finger could thread his fingers through her soft, tousled hair, scrunching down into her scalp. "The Lucian Alliance is a pain in the ass we don't need right now."

There was anger in his voice again and that wasn't good. He needed to rest. "Not now," she said, putting a finger on his lips. "Sleep first. Sleep with me. Hold me in your arms. When we wake up it will be morning and we'll do anything you want, anyway you want to do it. But we both need to sleep."

"You'll be here?" He sounded almost uncertain.

Oh god, Jack, stop, she thought. Sleep. "I'm not going anywhere," she promised. I'm here. You're here. And the whole meaning of their existence came down to that.

It seemed to soothe him. Sam could feel him starting to get heavier, emotional exhaustion catching up, dragging them both down like a sinker. So tired, so glad to have Jack to sink into. She cuddled in close and managed to wait until his even breathing told her he was out before sliding blissfully into oblivion.

(0)


	133. Chapter 133

**I decided that Jack and Sam needed a interlude before we move on to Line In the Sand.**

**(0)**

Sometimes Sam wondered why she had ever been angry with Edora. It was the perfect place to escape to after everything had gone FUBAR on a mission. Unlike the days in which they had come to visit Jett and brought him back to the house he had been born in, now when they came to Edora, Jett stayed with his brother and sister-in-law and their two young children, which meant Jack and Sam had the house to themselves for a few days.

Which was exactly what they had wanted.

They had left summer behind on Earth and walked into the reality of late fall on Edora. The trees were nearly bare and the first frost was in the air. There was a wind storm swirling around outside. They had brought in firewood and stocked up the supply in the wood box. Jack liked to keep the lights dim in the evening and Sam had suggested pulling out his old flannel sleeping bags – the ones he had left here ages ago – and sleeping in front of the fireplace.

Though they weren't exactly sleeping. Sam was lying face down in flannel plaid that still carried the scent of spruce and Minnesota moonlit nights. Warm, safe, beloved weight was pressing down on her. Jack's breathing and gasps and occasional murmur of pleasure were in her ear, comforting and arousing. Smooth, hard flesh was filling her, slick and slow and deep. Sam moaned in response, melting into Jack and into the flannel.

"Jack," she whispered, trying to wriggle backwards, bearing down on him. He chuckled, low, and his legs spread hers wider. The weight of his chest and shoulders pressed against her from above. "Yes," she hissed.

A heavy blanket of male muscle and bone and hard skin covered her and held her safe while outside the wind began whipping sleet against the windows.

"Jack," she murmured again. Her hands clutched at the fabric. Jack's hands came down and covered hers, fingers twining as he rocked on her, in her, in no hurry, the slightest movement radiating pleasure through their joined bodies. She was aware of firelight flickering beyond her slightly closed eyelids as waves of sweetness rolled over her. "Oh god, Jack," she was almost mindless at this point. She crested and lost all sense of time and place; she rose and fell on the slow, sweet swells of a buoyant, enfolding sea. Jack, Jack. It was a slowly unfolding dream of connection, of heat and flesh and firelight, pressed and filled and he kept her there for a very long time.

When she surfaced, Jack was still above her, fingers still linked and his face lying lightly against the side of hers. "Jack," she said, overwhelmed.

"I'm right here," he said, moving in her, making her aware of every contour of the hard cock molding the inside of her body to its shape. Jack's slim, strong hips rubbed her into the softness of the bag, making her crazy; flannel stroked her with every slow, deep thrust. She groaned, already overly sensitive. Her fingers tightened in his. Her other hand clawed the bag. Jack's hand continued to hold hers. His lips moved over the delicate shell of her ear, gently outlining it before continuing down her neck.

"Jack." It was all she could say, all that mattered as orgasm shivered through her again, built in endless ripples and sent her convulsing around his cock. The world narrowed down to fast hard thrusts and the throb of ecstasy; a firestorm of climax inside a vast sparkling blackness, like the stars moving by at warp speed and Sam felt like she was going to dissolve in minute particles. She felt like she was going to fly apart into the sleet and the wind – except that Jack was there, holding her together.

"Sam," he gasped. His body was tense and straining, no longer unhurried. "Can't—" he broke off in a hard shudder as orgasm broke over him and into her, a molten torrent, surge after surge, heat and pleasure welding them together.

Long moments later when Jack tried to elbow up and move away Sam said, "Don't," and tightened her fingers again.

"I'll crush you," he said, moving his face through the tousled hair on the back of her head.

"Won't," she said and Jack huffed out a little breath of laughter.

Groaning, he let go of her hands and moved one arm as if it suddenly weighed a thousand pounds, and then the other, until he could leverage himself up. They came apart on another groan and he dropped onto his side. Moving in slow motion, Sam turned to face him. Exhausted limbs tangled together. She felt damp breath on her forehead. She managed to stroke the soft hairs on his forearm with her thumb. She let her eyes drift closed a little and watched the play of firelight and shadows for a while. She waited, breathing with Jack, thinking that she should say something, at least an I love you. But after a while she felt Jack's breathing change and his body surrender to the heaviness of sleep.

Safe and loved, Sam pushed into his arms and fell asleep, listening to the beat of his heart and the howl of the useless wind beyond the glass.

(0)


	134. Chapter 134

**Tag to Line in the Sand**

Sam had learned very early in her military career how to wake up in strange surroundings. The slightest difference-in sound, scent, even temperature-was enough to make her continue to lie still and wait until she had more information. This time her awareness came back to her slowly. The sounds were fuzzy and indistinct. The scents were unfamiliar and antiseptic. The last thing she remembered was being lifted onto a stretcher by SGC medics and Cam telling her everything was going to be all right now. There seemed to be bright light beyond her closed eyelids, demanding entrance.

Then a single sound became absolutely clear and she zeroed in on it.

"They're going to let her wake up on her own…No, she's going to be fine…That would be good. Give Mitchell this number if he wants to call me…Tell him I said he can call…Yeah…okay. Bye, Hank."

_Jack._ Jack's voice. The knowledge settled over her like a blanket, warm and reassuring.

She had forgotten what hurt and what she could move safely. She kept her eyes closed, still hiding in the dark from whatever pain was waiting out there; not just hers, but Jack's as well.

Because she had almost died, again. That she did remember. She had thought after the incident on the Odyssey that it couldn't get worse. But then it had, with a kind of gleeful abandon, and she hadn't been just threatened with a weapon but actually shot with one. It was better to lie here and just listen to his voice and feel the movement in the air that was Jack coming to her side. She felt the way he sat down and then his hand was reaching for hers, curving around it, and she couldn't help but react. She squeezed back, tightly.

"Sam?" he asked, gently.

It was a question, not an order. If he had used her last name it might still have sounded like an order and she would have obeyed it instantly, no matter if he put a note of query in it.

Since nothing had hurt when she moved her hand, she took a breath and allowed her eyelids to open. She blinked in the harsh light bouncing off hospital white walls and then turned her head just enough to see Jack. She didn't want to see anxiety in his eyes. She didn't want to know that she had sent him into a tailspin again, into sleepless nights. She didn't want loving her to be an emotional battlefield for him.

She let out the breath on a long, slow exhale. Jack looked tired, but relieved.

"I'm sor–" she began, but he cut her off instantly.

"Oh, Sam, don't," he said, leaning forward, putting his arm over her head and dusting her bangs to the side. "Someone asked you to do the impossible and didn't give you time enough to do it right and you still pulled through."

His voice was still gentle, relaxed. There were lines etched in his forehead but they were a permanent fixture now, formed during a lifetime of worrying that everyone and everything under his command was okay.

"I got shot," she reminded him.

Jack tilted his head and asked, quizzically. "On purpose?"

She laughed and then gasped as she remembered exactly where she had been shot and how much it hurt. Her body tensed under the hospital sheet. Jack's expression instantly changed to concern.

"Pain meds are wearing off. Do you want something?" he asked.

Sam grimaced and settled back down on the bed. "No," she said, gritting her teeth. Then she relaxed and exhaled again. "No. It's okay. It'll knock me out and I want to talk to you."

Jack sat back a little and put both his hands over hers. "Okay. What'd you want to talk about? The Kings are doing well even though they gave up more than half their top guys-"

"Sir," Sam interrupted. Jack's eyes were soft again. "I know it sounds like a horrible cliché, but where _am _I?"

"Secured medical facility in Arlington," he answered.

"Virginia?" She was so startled she almost lifted her head again before remembering the likely stab of pain that movement would cause.

"That's where we keep Arlington these days," he replied.

"The one Mitchell was in for a year?" she guessed.

"The same, though his room was down the hall. This is the floor with the full security clearance requirement."

"How did I get here?"

"Airlift."

"They couldn't fix me in the infirmary?"

"They did for the most part. Then I wanted you here, close to me, in a room with a window and more specifically, far away from your lab."

Sam grimaced at him and then glanced at the small security camera in the corner and then back at him with a question in her eyes.

"It's off," he said. "My orders. Privacy and all. You might talk in your sleep."

Sam thought about that and then asked, "Is Jett all right?

"Yes, he's fine. He loves school. I came home to a house full of eight-year-olds the other night."

Sam smiled. Jett had taken to living on Earth, to living in America, the way an eagle took to the wind.

"He wants to try soccer," Jack added, with a slight eye roll.

"I can't see you as a soccer dad," Sam said.

"I'm taking him to a hockey game. He likes it on TV so we'll see what he thinks of it in person. Then I'll try steering him to the junior league. When you see him, try to make that sound great for me, would you?"

Sam nodded. Hockey dad she could see. It made her a little happier too. She didn't like the idea of Jett repeatedly bouncing a ball off his head, with no helmet, and running around in shorts. Hockey at least had helmets and knee pads. But she also knew that Jack would do whatever Jett showed the most interest in, and she would support them both in whatever that was.

"Good," Jack went on, "You'll be coming to stay with us after they release you from here-"

"What?"

"You won't be able to be alone for at least a couple of weeks. I can work from the condo if I have to. Besides, Jett will love it."

"Did you tell him what happened?"

"I told him you were hurt off-world but you're going to be fine. He says he wants a Risk rematch."

Sam smiled a little. "I'll let him win this time."

"Don't. He'll know."

"He's his father's son," she said. Then she asked the question she was the most worried about; cautiously, eyes bright, anxious. "How are you?"

Jack looked down for a moment. It had only been a month since he had almost come apart at the seams wondering if she was alive. Then he had gone to Atlantis and somehow in his absence the SGC had managed to lose Daniel and he'd had to concentrate on setting something serious in motion in order to get Daniel back while worrying, at the same time, how Sam was going to react to him being trapped at the Ground Zero target of a nuclear bomb – by his own orders.

He hadn't even known she had been seriously injured on P9C-882 until she was back at the SGC and in the surgery. He hadn't had time to come apart over it; over any of it. There had been too much action that needed to be taken.

"It's never going to be easy for me," he began slowly. "I'm never going to be able to just rough off you getting hurt. Every time it happens I freak out a little worse than the time before, and the last two years have been pretty much hell. But I'm okay." Sam's eyebrows went up a little and Jack made a scoffing noise. "Honey, if I tried to bullshit you, you'd figure it out in a heartbeat."

There was something in his voice, something in his eyes. Sam gazed at him for a long time trying to process it. When she finally got it, she caught her breath. "You want to pull me."

"With all my heart," Jack admitted, instantly, unapologetically.

They had agreed on two years – with her in Groom Lake and him in DC – and then he would retire and they'd be together again. Neither of them had said _marriage_,but it was assumed. At least, Jack hoped it was assumed, because he was sure as hell assuming it. They'd prepared for the misery of being so far apart. But not the performance hit. They weren't just unhappy apart; they functioned differently apart. He could kick the both of them for not figuring that out the year he had been in charge of the SGC. They'd had no idea how much of what made each of them work was because of the other.

Now the Ori had come along. They had gone to Atlantis and woken the Wraith and two years had gone by and he was nowhere near being able to retire. Sam should have caught a break and been able to indulge her love for science over being a soldier and that wouldn't happen now at all.

Some soldiers were in it for the fight, because fighting was all they knew and all they wanted. Fighting was their strength, and Jack respected that. But Sam wasn't that kind. Jack had known that three missions in, ten years ago. She was one of the ones who stayed in because only they could win it; one of the ones who brought something so unique and vital that the war couldn't be won without them. Daniel was like that, and so was Teal'c. But so was Sam. The world was never done with that kind. They were irreplaceable and they were already without Daniel and who knew how long that would go on. Jack knew that, because it was his job to make those assessments about the personnel he deployed. He knew that because he was one of them.

But what the world seemed to want from him now didn't make sense, and what it could take from him turned his insides to jelly.

"Are you going to?" Sam asked quietly.

Jack looked at her sharply. "No," he said. "_General_ O'Neill knows that would be a very bad idea. We need you out there. _Jack_ O'Neill knows that you'd never forgive him and it would ruin everything I'd be trying to save."

Sam's hand contracted around his in a too tight squeeze – the equivalent of understanding and apology. "This wasn't your fault, Jack," she said. "You weren't responsible for it."

"That's not what I'm thinking."

"Isn't it? This is what you do – take responsibility for everything that happens under your command. But this wasn't your call; it wasn't your mission. And it's not Cam's fault either. He saved my life. I might have died without him."

"You don't have to keep defending Mitchell to me. I'm the one who gave him SG-1 and I had good reasons for doing it. I'm not looking to lay blame here, Carter. I've been in the field enough to know that sometimes crap happens. Mitchell brought you all back. It's what I expect him to do."

She was giving him a narrow, assessing look. She didn't want to have to remind him that even he had gotten them all killed at least once. And then there were the multiple times that Daniel had been lost to them, though not all the fatal times had been on Jack's watch. She knew how much Jack hated it when something happened, and especially when something happened to her. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She continued to study him for a while, fighting the twinges of pain that were starting to radiate in her back. "I don't know if this would have gone down differently with you or not. I just know that I miss you. I've been out there without you for three years and I still look for you every time I go up that ramp."

"I know," he said. Whatever else he was going to say was cut off when Sam winced and hissed in a sharp breath. "That's it. You're going to rest and get better now and we'll hash all this out later."

"Is there more that has to be hashed out?" she asked.

Jack had reached over and pressed a tab on her IV. "We'll figure that out later too. In the meantime you have to get better. I have three tickets to a hockey game and one of them belongs to you. Don't disappoint Jett."

"I wouldn't dare," she said.

He was settling back down when his cell phone chimed. He looked at it and sighed. "I gotta take this. It's Woolsey." She nodded as he put the phone to his ear, "O'Neill." What followed was a long tense silence in which Jack's expression grew more and more grim. Sam could hear Woolsey's voice speaking rapidly but she couldn't make out what he was saying. She put her hand on his arm and mouthed anxiously, _Daniel?_

Jack shook his head, put his hand over the end of the phone and said quietly, "Atlantis."

God, not again….

_Bad? Sam mouthed again._

Jack nodded and then spoke, cutting off the long string of Woolsey's report. "I'll come in," he said, sharply. "Be in my office in twenty minutes."

He shut off the connection and glared at the phone as if it had become a personal enemy. He then gave her an apologetic look. "I have to go." He stood up and leaned over to kiss her forehead. It surprised her but whatever was in that IV was good stuff because she was too groggy to remark on it.

"What happened?"

"I don't have the whole story yet. I don't think anyone is dead." He still looked entirely too grim. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Since he was still bent over she took a chance and said, very very quietly, "I love you."

"I love you too. Now get better, Colonel. That's an order."

Sam smiled and sank back, closing her eyes and murmuring, "Yes, sir."

(0)

**A/N : Line in the Sand takes place almost at the same time as the Return in SGA: Atlantis, which happens at the same time as the Quest and it's immediately followed by SGA: Sunday, giving this section way more layers than I originally anticipated. All I can think is, poor Jack.**


	135. Chapter 135

**A tiny glimpse into their life outside the SGC and how they make it work. While Sam recovers in the Arlington condo:**

**(0)**

The crap Jack was dealing with had him working much later than he wanted. It also had Sam missing him dreadfully. She had been hoping for more time with him while she stayed at the condo and rested and continued to heal. That hadn't worked out the way she wanted. But she was getting lots of time with Jett and that was something priceless.

They were watching the _Wizard of Oz_ together on the couch, after dinner. Sam had made a huge bowl of caramel popcorn and plopped down on the couch. Jett had settled down close to her, careful of her injured side. But by the time the tornado touched down he was snuggled a little closer.

The tornado scene had always bothered Jett a little bit. The first time they had watched it – months before, with Jack - he had asked Sam over and over if they had tornadoes in Colorado and how did they form and were Auntie Em and Uncle Henry really all right in the storm cellar. She had shared a look with Jack over the top of Jett's head. Jett didn't mind the dark, or speed, or loud noises, bugs, heights or just about anything else. But he had never been comfortable in storms. He was always sure that he was going to lose someone else the way he had lost his mother. He was happier now that he knew Dorothy's family was all right; and that there was little danger from tornadoes where his family lived or where they traveled.

But he always cuddled up a little closer to Sam during the beginning of the movie; and then he usually stayed there for a while. Between Jett being sure a storm was going to cost him another parental figure and Jack holding his breath waiting for Jett to safely turn nine years old, Sam was the stabilizing factor in both their lives.

Never mind that she was scared to death every time either of them got into a car. It was an old fear and one she had learned to live with. Still, she put her arm around his shoulders and hoped that he never got too big to need her comfort.

Jett got a handful of caramel corn from the bowl on her lap and chewed it as Dorothy's house was uprooted and swept into the tornado.

"This is good, Sam," he said, "Jack just pulls it out of the microwave and we eat it out of the bag. Can you teach him to make it?"

"How about I teach you?" She suggested.

"Yeah?" Jett seemed intrigued.

"Yeah," she said, "Then you can surprise him."

He settled down and watched the movie for a while. The part in Munchkin Land always bored him so Sam expected him to start talking again. Unlike his fairly reticent father, Jett liked to talk about anything and everything and he was insatiably curios. _Everything_ existed for him to explore. But when he didn't immediately say anything and they were all the way up to the Lollipop Guild, Sam said, "So what do you think of school?"

Jett shrugged. "It's kind of a long day, but I like the people. I like the kids. My teacher is nice. She doesn't ask me a whole lot of questions about my mom or where I'm from. Do you think she knows I'm not from Earth?"

"No, she doesn't and you _are_ from Earth, Jett. This is half your heritage. You belong to Edora but you belong to the Tauri, too."

Jett started picking at the fading knee of his jeans. "She looks surprised when I call my father Jack."

Sam tensed a little and proceeded cautiously. "That's what you've always called him," she pointed out.

"I know," Jett shifted a little and Sam roughed his tousled curls briefly. She loved his hair for some reason. It was the only thing about him that was completely distinct from Jack – thick, with heavy waves and inky black in color. The rest of him – from being too tall for his age and having the same goofy, slightly lopsided smile and melted dark chocolate eyes, the cheekbones and his chin, forehead and nose – was Jack. "All the other kids call their fathers 'dad'."

"It's the custom, "Sam answered.

Jett twisted around to look up at her. "Do you think Jack would mind?"

"If you called him dad?" Sam was literally surprised.

"Yes!"

"No! I mean, no, I don't think he would mind at all! Just ask him!"

"He never let me before."

"Jett, he never had a choice before. Your mother thought it would confuse you and he wanted to respect her wishes. You know Jack is a really important man and he has done a whole lot of things that he should be very proud of accomplishing. But I know the only thing he's actually proud of is being your dad."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Sam assured him.

Jett settled down again and reached for more popcorn and didn't say anything more on the subject. When the movie ended Sam cleaned up the kitchen, moving slowly as she'd been forced to do for the last week, because she didn't want Jack to have to fix the bandage on her side when he came home. Jett went to get ready for bed. When he was snug in clean pajamas – designed to look like an astronaut suit – and tucked into his Spiderman sheets and quilt, Sam read him Wings, a book about the Icarus myth that Daniel had given him for Christmas.

Sam turned out his light, kissed him on the forehead, said goodnight and went back out into the living room to read and wait for Jack. She checked on him once on her way to the bathroom and discovered that he was sound asleep.

(0)


	136. Chapter 136

**After Jett went to sleep and Jack came home. The interlude continues.**

**(0)**

Jack came through the door a little after 11pm. His exhaustion and irritation evaporated as Sam slipped into his arms before he had a chance to put down his briefcase.

"Hey," she said.

He closed one arm around her, dropped the case on the floor with very little concern for how expensive it was and then got both arms around her. _Christ, this is heaven_, he thought and tried not to wonder what it would be like to have this every night. Sam wasn't the kind of woman who would take kindly to waiting around at home for him to finally manage to leave work night after night; and he wouldn't want her to be. He also didn't want her to be injured so badly that she had to be taken off the roster.

But for now, it was heaven.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

Sam didn't let go so she had to tip her head very far back to look up at him. Jack caught the back of it in his hand, carding fingers through her hair. "Better. It's easier to move. I don't need the pain killers as much. I made mac and cheese. Do you want some?"

"From the blue box?"

"No, the recipe from scratch that Jillian showed me. We saved you some."

Jack shook his head and finally let her go so he could get out of his blue Air Force jacket. "No, I had something in the car on the way here. Is Jett asleep?"

"Yes, he's fine. You took the town car to the drive-thru at Taco Bell again didn't you?"

"And left the mess in the backseat for my driver," Jack admitted.

Sam smiled and put her arm around his waist, as much for support as just to hold him. They got to the couch, where Jack collapsed with a sigh and worked his tie loose enough to get over his head.

"Can't they ever schedule these international conference calls when it's a reasonably hour for you?" Sam asked.

"They do, more often than you probably think. It's supposedly a cooperative group now but we've got the upper hand and that isn't likely to change any time soon." Jack put his head back and closed his eyes.

Sam knew things had been tempered slightly in the last few weeks. Woolsey had a whole new level of understanding and respect for Jack after the events in Atlantis. He'd been running interference lately in a way that was unprecedented.

"Is it still the Chinese and the 302 training program?" Sam asked.

Jack grunted in a way that meant 'yes'. "I sent Mitchell with the other pilots. He ought to be able to get it moving in a way that will shut them the hell up."

"Cameron?"

"Yeah. Hank won't send SG-1 out two men short and I agree with that. This will keep Mitchell out of trouble."

"Where's Teal'c?"

"On Hak'tyl."

Cautiously Sam asked, "And Vala?" The idea of Vala left to her own devices and on her own did not bear too much thought.

"Temporarily assigned to SG-8."

"What?"

"Jillian said she could keep an eye on her," Jack's answer was laconic and filled with further meaning.

Sam considered that for a moment and then shook her head. She had long ago come to realize that Daniel's interest in Vala was more along the lines of an AA sponsor and an alcoholic. He saw something in her that no one else did; or maybe people did but also didn't think it was worth the effort to dig down to. Daniel had never been one to walk away from a challenge. It seemed that, as in everything else, Jillian was willing to back Daniel up on this.

She also knew that Jack and Daniel were having another of their classic disagreements about Vala. Sam had a feeling Jack was right and wondered how long it would take Daniel to see that. Sam hadn't known that to do with Vala at first. The woman had seemed to take one look at Daniel and know exactly how to get to him and not many people, besides Jack, knew how to do that. She hadn't exactly sympathized with Vala for the sometimes brutal way Daniel treated her in return; until Vala's escape from the Ori galaxy and her accompanying change of heart, Vala had deserved every ounce of sass Daniel threw back at her. It had confused Sam at first because it was in so much opposition to the way Daniel usually treated people. Eventually she had realized that Vala would have just snarled at him and bitten off any attempts to treat her with sugar; and Daniel with his incredible empathy had somehow gotten that.

But Vala had genuinely changed, and Jack was annoyed at the way Daniel kept patting her on the head now. Jack felt that Vala was more important to the program without her edges being sanded off.

"_She could be a great operative with Special Forces potential. Daniel keeps dulling her instincts. She's a bloodhound and Daniel wants to turn her into a lapdog," Jack had growled on one occasion._

"_She likes Daniel's lap," Sam had observed, mildly, in an attempt to improve his mood._

_Jack had grunted. "I noticed."_

So had Jillian and Sam had been further surprised when that hadn't bothered Jillian one bit; until Sam thought of Jack. She knew that another woman could sit in Jack's lap without a stitch of clothing and Jack wouldn't notice. Well, he would notice, but he wouldn't do a thing about it except remove his would-be seductress from his lap.

That kind of trust was more important than any level of love.

"What did Mallory say?" Sam asked, referring to the commander of SG-8.

"Nothing anyone has passed on to me," Jack answered, "But Mal's not a real talkative guy." He moved to put his arm around her shoulders, holding it up to let her get comfortably settled before letting its weight rest on her. "What did you and Jett do?"

"Homework, dinner, watched a movie - _Wizard of Oz. _We talked."

"You got him to do homework on a Friday night? What did you bribe him with?"

Sam shrugged. "Nothing, I just said we'd have more time to do stuff on Sunday if he didn't put it off. Jack, there's something he wants to ask you."

Even in a coma, Jack would get up if Jett needed him. Sam felt the way he stirred, sat a little straighter, lifted his head. "What?" He asked.

"He wants to call you dad."

Jack blinked. Actually looked startled for a moment and then laughed a little and put his head back again. "I got no problem with that. I always wanted him to. Why is he worried about it?"

"I'm not sure," Sam admitted. "But he always asks me before he asks you when he's wondering."

"He does?"

"Sometimes he even calls. He figured out the phones here pretty quick."

"Should I be worried about _that_?" He asked.

"I don't think so. He adores you."

"Maybe I should just tell him he can start calling me that whenever he wants."

"No! Then he'll know I talked to you about it. Just let him ask you. If he doesn't, I'll encourage him. Besides, he can't really call you anything he wants and you know that so be careful how you phrase it."

Jack turned so he was looking at her. He couldn't really call her anything he wanted either. 'Samantha' was something that he tried to avoid. For some reason he thought of it only as the eight letter designation that identified her in official documents. 'Sam' was how he thought of her – brains and beauty and combat experience and mad marksmanship skill. 'Sam' was the woman he loved.

'Carter' was the way he told her that he loved her and exactly how much. It was his name for her.

"You ready for bed?" She asked.

"I almost fell asleep on the way here," Jack said, rising with a low groan.

He was exhausted and Sam was still in need of rest and healing, so sex was out of the question. But he found that he didn't care. It was still enough that she was here.

Sam went into the master bathroom while Jack did his usual prowl of the condo to make sure it was secure. He heard her brushing her teeth while he carefully opened Jett's door and checked on him one more time before shutting it. Sam was wearing a black t-shirt because it was easier to get over her head without lifting her arms too high. By the time Jack had finished his own absolutions in the bathroom, Sam was lying on her uninjured side on his side of the bed. They'd switched sides temporarily so that they could face each other without Sam having to lay on her injury. He stripped to his boxers and got in facing her.

Sam moved closer, and he moved closer, and then they were sinking into each other, limbs twining with the ease of welcome and familiarity. The shock of her against his chest and belly eased into the sublime warmth of being with her. It was all his body had craved at the moment. Just this: Sam's body up against his, the whole length of it, fitted to him. A circuit completed.

"_Carter_," he breathed, shifting closer. In spite of his exhaustion he reacted when her thigh pressed up against him, hardening slightly.

"This okay?" Sam asked, suddenly anxious.

Jack drank in her presence, his eyes sliding closed. "Yeah. For now. Did you take your meds?"

"Yeah," Sam said.

Jack pulled her a little closer and after a while her heart rate and breathing slowed until he felt the moment when Sam fell asleep.

A weight of tension left over from the demands of the day and the conference calls drained away. Sam fell more solidly against him as she slept. But the weight of her felt just as good against Jack. It filled him with a sweetness of arousal he didn't have to do anything about. Sam was in his arms. He could feel her breathing, her body rising against his, the tickle of air against his neck and shoulder. She was alive and she was here. Everything was all right.

In peace, Jack went to sleep.

(0)


	137. Chapter 137

**This is another one of those chapters from Sunshine and Shadow that I eventually decide needs to be here as well. This is intended to be Sam and Jack's part of my personal Stargate world but sometimes it's about Jack and his relationships with the rest of the team too. After the credits of The Shroud:**

**(0)**

"So," Jack said conversationally, "You want to try telling me you're 'fine' or do you need me to pull something?"

It was an odd combination of their old shorthand and current understanding. They were alone briefly, with the medics off bothering other patients and SG-1 talking amongst themselves across the room.

"Pull something," Daniel answered quietly.

"What do you need?

Daniel waved a hand in a general gesture, not something left over from his brush with having super powers. "I need time away from all this. I need fresh air. I need my wife and my son."

Jack thought about it for a moment. It would take a massive effort on his part. The IOA was going to want him under heavy surveillance until they were completely sure he was really Daniel Jackson again. But if that was what Daniel needed at the moment….

"Done," Jack said, simply.

Thirty-six hours later he had Daniel in a secluded safe house somewhere in Montana. They beamed in, with several days' worth of groceries and supplies and a duffel bag full of civilian clothes. Daniel dropped the duffel, walked over to the couch, and sank onto it. He took his glasses off with both hands and put them on the side table. Rubbing his eyes he said, formally, "Thank you, and I'm sorry."

Jack pondered that for a moment and then said, "For what? The massive two-month pain in the ass of that entire incident, or for the relatively minor hassle of coordinating this?"

Daniel hesitated briefly. "Both I guess, but mostly for this. Where is Jillian?"

"On her way. We flew her into Bozeman and there's a car bringing her up. You've both got encoded cell phones if you need a quick beam-out."

"Who's driving her?"

"Sam. She flew her to Bozeman too. I gave her the plane."

Daniel nodded, satisfied. They had stopped subjecting JD to Asgard beams and starships and the SGC base months ago, when his vocabulary expanded and awareness of his surroundings increased seemingly overnight. Daniel trusted Sam to get them there safely. Besides, JD needed more stuff than two SGC teams needed for an extended stay off-world.

"We'll leave you the car," Jack went on. He had started checking the windows and looking in closets.

"What are you doing?" Daniel asked, putting his glasses back on and squinting. "It's a safe house isn't it?"

"Habit," Jack shrugged. He turned around and considered the hunched, miserable figure of Daniel Jackson. "You want to help me put some of the groceries away while we wait for them?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, rising.

They walked into the kitchen carrying bags that they put on the table. Daniel looked exhausted. There was a two-star general in Jack's head who was anxious to get this fixed because six more Prior-commanded invincible starships had come through the Stargate they had opened. He needed Daniel on his feet. The debriefing had already been brutal. The hours he had spent interrogating Daniel and watching him being interrogated had almost killed him, and heaven alone knew what those hours had done to Daniel.

To Daniel's credit he hadn't lost his temper, at least not in a way that anyone who didn't know him well would notice. Jack – who knew Daniel very well – had seen the glazed eyes, the tension in his muscles even when he appeared to be relaxed. That look would have terrified anyone who really knew Daniel. The Chinese and French representatives of the IOA had forged ahead in their questioning, blessedly unaware of the danger they were in. When Daniel felt powerless - against a group of supposedly Enlightened Beings, against the IOA, against all odds - he lashed out with ice cold and razor sharp intellect. Daniel never acted like the smartest guy in the room unless he was frigidly angry.

This had wrecked Daniel in ways Jack couldn't begin to calculate. It had wrung Jack emotionally too - seeing Daniel come back foreign and mutilated, believing in his heart that it was Daniel and knowing he couldn't afford to trust that belief, the pressure of the decision about the Gate, the weight of the consequences. To say nothing of the last twenty-four hours. The interrogations had been for the cameras, for the intrusive, listening ears of the IOA. They were not the frank and honest conversations that he could have with Daniel after a decade of friendship. They weren't even close, and they needed to have one of those conversations now, before Daniel was reunited with his wife and son. Jack was halfway to picking up the phone and extending Daniel's leave indefinitely.

Jack was trying to feel his way into what would help, not make it worse, because he couldn't stand seeing Daniel in this much pain. Jack couldn't stand the helplessness he knew Daniel felt in the face of such profound stress.

He shouldn't have worried about how to start the conversation. Talking had always been Daniel's job.

"When it was you," Daniel said slowly, "both times you…when you…"

"Stuck my head in those Ancient head-suckers?"

Daniel made a wry face and shook his head in irritation. "Yes. That. The stuff in your head did what we needed it to do, things that were useful: gave us new gate addresses, fixed the DHD, dialed the Asgard, told us where Taonas was, rigged the ship to go faster, got the charged ZPM, took us to the weapons outpost, put you in the stasis pod."

"You needed yours to build an Ancient weapon to destroy Ascended beings, and it did."

"I know," Daniel said, but his voice was so uncertain Jack knew he didn't mean it. Jack knew, after all this time, all the notes Daniel's voice could hit. He even heard the notes in the silences.

Daniel seemed to shrug it off, shooting Jack a look that said he was sorry for bringing it up. "I believed I was doing the right thing. But I've believed that before and been wrong. When I brought up that thing with Ba—that thing you said we were never going to talk about again ever, I was trying to tell you that. I needed you to tell me that I could be trusted."

"I did, Daniel, "Jack said tightly. "I gave the order to open the Gate, or did you forget?"

"No, I didn't forget; and I am grateful for that," Daniel insisted.

Jack's eyebrows went up to his hairline. "Big of you," he said in his most pissed-off tone of voice. "You might want to take into consideration that I'm about to leave you with Jillian and JD. I wouldn't do that if I wasn't damned sure it was you standing here."

"I know!" Daniel answered.

"Look, Daniel," Jack said, losing patience. "You don't turn into a monster when you have too much power, no more than I do." At Daniel's shocked expression, he went on ruthlessly, "Yeah, your wife told me about that. Don't get mad at her. She loves you and she needed to talk about it. So you didn't stop Ba'al the way I wanted you to and you didn't talk me into joining you as a glow bug. You did what you could. You came to me and you tried to do what you thought would work within the rules and given what you knew at the time. That time, you made it so the whole team could work and I could get myself out without Oma getting pissy about it. You didn't do all this on your own. Not this time. I gave the order to open the Gate. Your team made it happen. You scared the crap out of Woolsey, but you didn't hurt him. Dammit, the man had threatened to kill you and then freeze you. He upset your wife. I get that you were pissed at him, and I kind of admire your restraint given the circumstances. You knocked out a couple of SFs without so much as giving them a minor bruise. You commandeered a ship and beamed a few people around. If that's as bad as you get, that's good."

"So it's just how I get when I'm convinced I'm right? When I'm willing to do anything, manipulate anyone, sacrifice anything, to get my own way?"

"How you get when you're trying to do the right thing and the powers that be won't let you," Jack answered.

Daniel looked annoyed and waved his hand in the air. "This time I was the power."

"And you used it, and you didn't turn into some kind of monster in the process."

"I used all of you to get what I wanted."

"To secure an objective," Jack corrected.

"Do we have to be all military?"

"Like it or not, it was a military operation."

"Fine! Then I used all of you to secure an objective."

"Well, for fuck's sake, Daniel, welcome to my world," Jack snapped. He scratched at his scalp in frustration. Even after all this time, the guy still didn't get it. Daniel was a seasoned veteran, quick-thinking and shrewd and resourceful, a force to be reckoned with, a hero - but he was not, by any stretch, no matter how he might present to the outside world, military. "Come on, Daniel! I've been using all of you since the first time we met! It's called 'deployment' and when push comes to shove, it's what leaders do. You had an objective, and when discussion and persuasion didn't get what you wanted, you took action. It's not what you're trained for. I gave the team to Sam and then I gave it to Mitchell and no one – not even you – suggested that you should be in charge, not once. It's not what you're good at, and frankly, Daniel, it's just not your job. So when you have to take command, you question every move you make. But not this time. This time you knew you were right because you actually were right."

Daniel paused in the act of loading fruit into the fridge, standing still and staring, unfocused, straight ahead. "How compromised am I?"

"You?" Jack blinked, startled. "You could never be irreparably compromised. We need you too much. The IOA knows that. They wanted a positive report on your condition and they got one."

Daniel made a derisive noise in his throat. "First they wanted to execute me and now they want me back at all costs?"

"Yep."

"Bastards."

"Tell me about it. You're irreplaceable and they know it. There's about two dozen SGC personnel the IOA knows they have no power over."

"Oh really? Dare I guess who they might be?"

"You, Carter, Teal'c, Sheppard." He hesitated and then sighed heavily. "McKay."

The corner of Daniel's mouth quirked up. It was less than Jack had been hoping for. He'd wanted a little bit of laughter. But there was less misery in Daniel's eyes and that was something.

Jack paused and leaned back against the counter, crossing his feet at the ankles, before saying, "Can I ask you something?"

"You spent hours asking me things, back on the ship," Daniel pointed out.

"Not this."

Daniel's whole body stilled, on alert, as if he had just heard something in the brush.

"How broken are you?" Jack asked.

"Why?" Daniel asked defensively, "Because I really should be more fucked-up than I appear to be?"

Jack growled at him, "Knock it off, Daniel! I'm not a shrink. I know you're really good at keeping a whole lot of shit inside, and I've been watching you get fucked up for a long time. This is way more than you've gone through before. You were a POW for eight weeks, playing head games with a mega-villain with super powers. What you've already told me is plenty. Half of what you've said is more than most people could handle."

"I'm fine Jack," Daniel said, turning back to the bags of groceries on the table.

"Bullshit, Daniel," Jack said, softly. He held off Daniel's protest with a raised hand. "I was in an Iraqi prison and I never told my wife what that was like. We lost our son and we still never talked about it."

"What are you saying, Jack?" Daniel asked quietly.

"Whatever it is you've got bottled up, whatever it is you don't want in any of the official reports, whatever you don't want to tell me or Sam or Teal'c, tell all of that to Jillian."

Daniel was refusing to make eye contact. "You know me, Jack. I love to talk," he said, sardonically.

"About everything and anything under the sun. But not about yourself; never that. And in this case it's just not a good idea."

"Do you tell Sam everything?" Daniel snapped.

"Yes!" The answer was ground out between Jack's teeth. "It's like hell sometimes, but Sam knows about Iraq and she knows a hell of a lot of other things I never told anyone else. We don't talk about–" he stopped and took a deep breath, "about Charlie, but something happened and she was there and she knows, so we don't have to."

Daniel's eyes were wide behind his glasses when Jack finally stopped talking. "Jeezus, Jack. I didn't mean–I…look, I'm sorry."

Jack sagged and then stood up straighter, waving him off. "Forget it. You've been doing this crap to me since we met. I start out trying to make it about you and the next thing I know I'm spilling my guts to you. You'd think I'd be used to it."

They stared at each other for a long silent moment and then they heard the sound of a car pulling up to the front of the cabin. Realization of who it must be hit them both.

"Is that my…?"

"Your family? Better be," Jack said.

He didn't have time to say anything else. Daniel had turned and was running for the door.

(0)


	138. Chapter 138

**I was working on this scene for Sunshine and Shadow and got all the way to the end of it when the Muse said, "Oh look, Sam and Jack are _right there"_ and added them into it. So it goes here too. A little romance both ways I hope.**

**(0)**

Daniel was halfway to the black Escalade, running, barely breathing when Jillian bolted out the passenger door and ran straight into his arms. It was the first time they'd had a chance to hold each other without constraint, with no one around who cared, in a place where there was nothing stopping them from finally reuniting the way they needed. There was simply nothing in the universe like the embrace they shared, union after a torturous absence; like the way she hid her face in his shoulder and inhaled on a sob, the way they fit together and how she tried to crawl inside him as he curved around her.

"Jillian," he gasped and then repeated it over and over. It sounded like he couldn't stop, like it was totally out of his control. The world around him stopped and dissolved and then became nothing but Jillian. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, clinging as if she hadn't the strength to stand on her own. His Jillian, his wife, his mate, his partner in the long battles they had chosen to fight; heart-stoppingly, breath-takingly beautiful and warm and solid in his arms. Daniel felt the rush of certainty he had used to survive the last two months – the certainty that as long as he had Jillian there wasn't anything that could not be conquered. It was, at last, the end of missing her.

Jillian was laughing and wiping her eyes on his shirt. She'd been crying since the car pulled up, since before she had opened the door. She hadn't been able to even see him when she started running and was taken completely by surprise when he caught her and wrapped her up in his arms. Relief coursed through her like a pure spring rain. They kissed. Their mouths met, starving, two months swept away in the completion of a kiss. This was a kiss of reunion. Of forgiveness. Of coming home.

A sound broke through to both of them at the same time. It was JD, waking up in his car seat as Sam reached in to unbuckle him. He let out an unhappy wail first at being woken up and then at seeing Sam instead of his mother. Sam lifted him out, and JD reached for Jillian with both fists opening and closing rapidly, crying, "Mama!"

Daniel let go of Jillian and looked past her as if he was afraid. Every muscle in his body tensed in reaction to the sound of his son crying. "Oh my god," he whispered, "JD! Look how big he is."

At the sound of his father's voice, JD fell strangely silent for a moment. He stopped looking at Jillian, hovering in Sam's arms as she walked towards them, and then he shrieked, "Daddy!"

JD practically toppled out of Sam's grip and into Daniel's anxious, eager hold. Daniel had pictured this moment over and over; so many times he had worn a deep groove in his thoughts from replaying it so often. It was more than he had ever anticipated. For months, time had crawled and now all he wanted was to suspend this moment because it was rushing by too fast. He held his son tightly, firm but gentle, with tears burning behind his closed lids. JD burst into confused tears, slumped against Daniel.

"Shhhh," Daniel said. He could feel JD's all-too-precious heart beating fast. "It's okay. I'm here."

"Where did you go?" JD asked. His eyes were wide and confused, still shimmering with tears. His lower lip was trembling. The look got to Daniel every time. It was nearly as bad as when Jillian cried.

"Far away, Sonshine," Daniel admitted. "But I'm home now."

JD pushed back and put his hands on either side of Daniel's face. Solemnly he said, "You stay here now!"

"Yeah," Daniel smiled in a misty way. Jillian pressed up to him again and he put one arm around her waist. He kissed her hair and then he kissed JD's forehead. "Yeah," he said, "I'm staying."

(0)

After handing JD off to Daniel, Sam stumbled to Jack, who caught her in his arms and gripped her so tight she almost couldn't breathe. He uttered a soft blasphemous curse under his breath and pushed his face into her hair. The utterance was laced with exhaustion and frustration, and it sounded as if he had been under enemy fire for days. He was shaking, and he fell immediately silent.

"Hey," she said, holding him up. When everything went to hell all around them, Jack was always the one who stood there unflinching. But Sam knew this mood. She had started seeing it after they had decided to jump off the cliff together and forge ahead with a relationship. But she knew what it was. She recognized the tension and the way he was drawing short even breaths through his gritted teeth. Her second doctorate was in 'Jack O'Neill', earned over a decade but mostly in the last two years. He only did this with her. She didn't think there was anyone else who saw this side of Jack. She pressed forward to absorb the vibrations in his body. Sometimes he managed to walk this off and sometimes he went on a long caustic rampage.

"Hey," she said, softly to stave off either reaction, "it's okay now."

Jack leaned into the warm solidity of her. Shaking, he said in a tone of utter disbelief, "Ya think?"

"Mmm-hmm. For sure. Everything is okay now." She had her arms around his waist now, leaning back and proving support.

"Six more ships came through the Gate." Jack started in a singsong voice.

"I know."

"The IOA is still in an uproar."

"True."

"Can't get rid of them, not in a wartime scenario of galactic proportions."

"Also true."

"Got a war with the Ori on one front and one with the Lucian Alliance on the other; and let's not even get started on the Wraith and Atlantis," Jack sped up the litany of problems a little, "Can't let Daniel rest for as long as I'd like; can't retire; can't have you move in with me to make that bearable. This is all okay?"

"We actually could do those last couple of things," Sam pointed out. "We're choosing not to and for good reasons."

"No reason that keeps me away from you like this is a good one."

"We need you in the Pentagon," Sam said, "Nothing proves it more than this did. You need me out there. There's a reason it has to be this way."

Jack squinted, looked down and gave her a good, hard, appraising once over. In spite of the way she was holding him up, her body was relaxed. Her smile was small but certain. "You really think everything is okay," he said, sounding blank.

"Yes," she said. "You want to know how I know?"

Jack lifted his eyebrows in question. Sam smiled a little more and tightened her hold. "Because you never lose it like this until everything is okay."

Jack blinked at her, tilted his head and blinked again as he realized it was just as true as it was stupid. "That's a terrible way to determine Okay-ness."

"It's the most accurate one I have," she answered. She leaned up to kiss him, and he had the presence of mind to reciprocate. "What do you say we help unpack the SUV, wish them well, say goodbye and go have some serious alone time?"

"Alone time where?" He was holding her with care now, as if he had remembered that she was breakable.

"I got us a room in Bozeman," Sam said with a slow, suggestive smile. "No one is expecting us until late tomorrow."

Jack studied her for a moment. Sometimes it seemed like Sam was the only one who had ever understood all the many layers of him. The thought of a night with her was better than the thought of an eternity with anyone else.

"Let's unpack an SUV," he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders and heading for the car.

(0)


	139. Chapter 139

Something short and explanatory. I also want to apologize to everyone reading this as it posts because I messed up the last two chapters by hitting the wrong doc when updating. I am pretty sure 137, 138 and now this one follow The Shroud thread for Moonlight and Steel. I should NOT post at night after school picture day. ;-)

(0)

They had a brief but intense discussion about the Escalade. Jack had intended to leave it with Daniel and Jillian but now he and Sam were staying in Bozeman at least for the night. He had intended to beam himself and Sam back to the plane for the flight back to Colorado Springs. But she had changed that.

"Take the car,"Jillian insisted. "Sam and I talked about it on the way here. Leave us the Asgard beam remote. We'll be fine."

Jack had shot a long hard glance at Daniel and then back to Jillian. "Are you sure?"

"If I wasn't he wouldn't be holding my son,"Jillian answered.

Daniel returned Jack's look with a frosty one of his own. "You said you were satisfied that I'm me,"he reminded him. "You said the IOA was getting a positive report. You put me under a damned _za__'__tarc _device!"

"That wasn't my idea!" Jack snapped; "And don't do that!"

"Do _what?__"_Daniel demanded.

"That thing you do with your eyebrows when you think the person you're talking to is an idiot!"

"What _thing_?"

Jack gestured at Daniel. "_That _thing!"

JD made a sudden unhappy sound because the raised voices were making him fret.

"Hey!"Jillian said, because only a mother defending her child was brave enough to get between Jack and Daniel once they got started.

Daniel looked instantly contrite and reached to take JD. He settled JD on his hip, patting his back. "It's okay,"he said, soothingly, "Don't let Uncle Jack scare you when he gets grumpy."

"Daniel-"Jack said, warningly.

"Jack,"Jillian cut him off again. "It's fine! In any real emergency the Asgard beam is faster than driving back down that dirt road to Bozeman. Take the car. Eat out, go shopping, go to a movie. Have fun for a change."

Jack turned to Sam at that point and she looked hopefully back at him. "Sounds nice,"she said.

"Jett?" Jack asked.

"I already called Cameron. They're having a blast, going to a basketball game with Vala."Jack's eyebrows closed together at the thought of his son and Vala Mal Doran spending any length of time together. But Sam shook her head. "They'll be fine."

"I hear that word a lot lately,"Jack grumbled. But in the end he gave in by spitting out "_Fine.__"_

He said goodbye to Jillian with a kiss on her temple and a reminder to get the hell out if _anything_ seemed squirrely. She assured him she would. Sam hugged both Daniel and Jillian and then followed Jack out the door into the late autumn chill.

Jack reached out for the keys but Sam shook her head. "Nope. I'm driving,"she said.

"Why?"

"Because you are way more tired than I am, unless you're willing to tell me you'd actually relive the last four days without any hesitation."

"Oh hell no,"Jack admitted with a slow heartfelt shake of his head.

"Besides, it's an awesome car and I want to drive. It's not the Hummer you said you would get but it's still an awesome car, " Sam went on, possessively opening the driver side door and getting in. She had the car started by the time Jack had shrugged out of his jacket and was putting on the seatbelt.

"Are you this disrespectful of me all the time or is it just when we're off duty?"He asked in the same disgruntled voice he had been using.

It wasn't a serious question but Sam chose to sit back in the seat and consider it carefully. Then she turned and pinned him with _those_ eyes –the ones that men wrote poems about and went to war over. "I don't ever disrespect you. But I'm not above bullying you for your own good; and you're exhausted."

Jack didn't say anything. He just dropped his guard and let his gratitude and amusement show on his face. They had communicated this way for over decade. So Sam got it right away and smiled back.

While she drove back to Bozeman, Jack got out his phone and called Jett. Sam could hear his excited voice even before Jack put it on speaker.

"Hi, Dad!"

Jack had to swallow a moment because no matter that they had talked about it and no matter that he'd thought he was ready for it, having an eight-year-old boy call him 'Dad'was something that made a whole cavalcade of emotion rumble through his chest. "Hi,"he managed to say finally. "How is it going?

"Great! I'm going to a basketball game with Cam and Vala. When are you coming back?"

"Tomorrow, before dinner. We'll go up in the plane with Sam one more time and then head back East. How does that sound?"

"Wicked awesome!" Jett answered. "Is Sam there?"

Jack looked over at Sam and mouthed 'wicked awesome'with his eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. "Yeah, she's here."

"Hi, Sam!"

"Hi, Jett. Have fun tonight, okay?"

"I will!"

"Jett,"Jack said, "Put Mitchell on the phone."

They could hear the phone been passed from hand to hand and Jett saying, "It's Dad."Then Cameron said, "Yes, sir?"

"Take care of him."

"Wouldn't dream of doing anything else, sir,"Cam answered.

"And don't fill him up on a bunch of junk. You'll never get him to sleep if you do."

"Good advice, sir."

Jack had Mitchell give the phone back to Jett and they talked for a few more minutes before saying good night. Sam called good night as well and then Jack put the phone away.

"How much cash do you have with you?"Jack asked.

"Enough,"she said.

"How did you pay for the room?"

"Cash, but it's Jillian's treat."

"Jillian?"

"For everything you did for Daniel. I said I was thinking about it and the next thing I knew she was researching five star motels on her cell phone."

"Motels?"

Sam gave him a sideways glance. "No hallways, no security cameras; and yes we paid cash."

Jack's smile was slow and proud. "That's my girl,"he said, in a low sultry purr.

(0)


	140. Chapter 140

**Mostly Jack and Sam but they talk about the events of the Shroud, so it belongs in Sunshine and Shadow too.**

**(0)**

Their motel was an easy walk to the center of downtown Bozeman. Dressed in warm jackets they strolled, holding hands, passed the stores and tourists stops. They went to Target and bought some clothes to change into. Jack found a pair of jeans, boxers and a sweat shirt that would do. Sam made him buy new socks in spite of his insistence that he could just wash out the ones he was wearing in the sink. He didn't quite understand the way she was shaking her head and muttering under her breath while picking out a whole new package of them. When she appeared unable to decide which ones to get Jack wandered off to find sporting goods to look at the fishing gear. On the way there he found a pink sweatshirt that had said 'Montana, est.1889' on it, so he bought it for her as a kind of memento. She could think about their time together every time she wore it; even if she just kept it in a drawer, she'd be reminded when she saw it.

Sam liked it so much she changed into it in the car before driving to the restaurant. Jack made a concerted effort to keep his hands at his side and his eyes looking out the front window at the lightly falling snow.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked quietly.

"Trying not to stare," he answered, cautiously glancing sideways to see that she was almost finished, pulling it down to her jeans and adjusting the bottom.

"You kind of have permission to stare now, don't you?" She asked.

Jack appeared to consider that very carefully. He was a veteran of too many locker rooms and long extended stays in the field; not to mention the eternal ten years he had spent conditioning himself _not_ to stare at Carter which was now combined with his determination not to sexualize her just because he now got to have sex with her. Finally he said, "No. I can't assume that."

Sam blinked and then smiled at him. It was one of the more romantic things he had ever said. "Well tonight you have blanket permission."

"To stare?"

"Yes," Sam was starting to laugh a little.

"Okay," Jack answered, "Just be warned that it was your idea. Oh, and you should probably still keep me from driving."

They had asked around and were directed to the Montana Ale House for dinner, where they had steaks and beer and shot two games of pool that attracted a crowd.

It was either the way they were pretty evenly matched in skill; or the hot blond in the tight jeans and pink sweatshirt who was playing and explaining the physics of billiards at the same time. Jack stayed with her through the application of Newton's Second Law and her discussion of the angular velocity of the cue ball. But he got pleasantly lost when she invoked Hooke's Law and just made his shots and listened to the cadence of her voice bouncing around in his head. Most of the time he had to cut her off because she was worse than Daniel at wanting to explain every little detail of everything. But when they were in situations like this he could let her talk and be amazed by her all over again.

When they were tied at two games each, they called it a night. There was a room in the only four-star motel they could find in Bozeman waiting for them.

Jack was still hungry – which Sam didn't tell him was another one of the signs of okay-ness that she watched for. He didn't tend to eat when he was in the midst of decision-making and crisis. Once it was over he couldn't get enough. They got two large pizzas, a cold six pack and a two liter bottle of diet Coke and slipped into their room.

The room was huge, way more than they needed for just an overnight. But Jillian had insisted on getting them one with a fireplace. It wasn't the Broadmoor, but it was spotlessly clean, the bed was a king size with a thick quilt and extra pillows. There was a kitchenette and a big bathroom. The western paneling was kind of cheesy but Sam kind of liked it too.

Jack set the small table in the window with the pizza and found a glass and ice for Sam's Coke. They ate in silence for a little while but Sam knew the rant she had staved off was still inside him somewhere. He had vented some of it in his little sing-song litany of all the current problems. But he was going to get an ulcer if he didn't release the rest of it; and Sam suspected that a huge part of it was whatever he was blaming himself for.

"Were you ever uncertain that was Daniel?" She asked, quietly, "That it was Daniel all along?"

"No," Jack said, "If you're asking me whether or not I thought Daniel had been converted to Origin, the answer is no, never. The Merlin thing was what made me hesitate."

"He seemed to be able to control Merlin. He told Vala he had to let it happen when she told him to fight it, let Merlin take over. Merlin _spoke_ to us through him."

"And I could suddenly do base 8 math and speak in a language no one had ever heard!" He snapped.

It temporarily silenced Sam's questions. Jack drank from the bottle of stout, swallowed, took a bite of pizza, chewed. When he had washed it down with another healthy swallow of stout he said, "I think he could control it, more than I could the two times I had all that information downloaded into my head."

"This was different. He insists this was only Merlin."

"He also insists it was a real person's consciousness somehow. I'm saying it was a machine, a _program_ from a machine. Merlin died. What was in Daniel's head was just enough of a program to defeat the Ori."

Sam had stopped chewing on her tiny slice of pizza. He knew from the look on her face that her overheated brain was now in overdrive. He decided to give it some more road. "The two times I had my head in one of those things there was nothing human about them. They were programs with information. Daniel's just scored higher on the Turing Test."

She shot him an assessing look because the Turing Test was _not_ something she expected Jack to know about. Like a thousand other things that he knew and kept to himself.

"Vala said there was a bright light-" Sam began.

"There's a bright light when you take a picture," Jack said.

"But it was like Oma Desala's energy form on Kheb, like the way Shifu looked when he left. It was like Daniel when he…" Her voice trailed off.

"Ascended," Jack said, shortly, stiffly because no one liked to remember that day. After taking another drink he went on boldly, "Merlin died and left a corpse that in turn got left behind when the cave switched locations. Daniel didn't leave anything. His body transformed into Ascended energy. Merlin didn't ascend and enter the repository. He didn't Ascend into the head sucking thing. He used his powers to imprint information on its circuitry, but _he_ didn't go in there. He wasn't in there. He spoke to Daniel and then died. So _he_ wasn't in Daniel's head."

Her eyes were wide and very blue as she gazed at him. "How many times did you read our reports? You say all that as if you were there!"

Jack grunted. "Quite a few times. It makes great late night reading when you can't sleep."

"I'm not sure, Jack," Sam said, "Ordinarily I'd be the first one to lean towards a technological answer, even one I didn't understand. But a white light approached Daniel _after_ Merlin died. I think maybe it was a combination of both machine _and man._ But how would that be possible?" Sam was so serious Jack expected her to get out a pencil and start doing equations on the pizza box. It wouldn't be the first time. He was a little flattered that she honestly seemed to want an answer from him. The question wasn't rhetorical.

"So it had some kind of mockup of Merlin's personality in it. Maybe that's what he did just before he died – activated the program because only he could do it. It was the same damn piece of Ancient technology and it had exactly the same capabilities. Once Daniel let that thing grab him, he had no more choice about what happened to him than I did. So, yeah, the Merlin thing made me hesitant."

"You hate hesitating."

Jack grunted again. He did and there wasn't any sense in denying it. He hated the kind of power he had now because sometimes it made him conservative. "Yeah. I wasn't sure if I'd be releasing Daniel or whatever it was that was masquerading as Merlin. I had a pretty good idea what Daniel would do, but I don't trust the Ancients and I never will. They've got their own agenda. I suspect that Merlin chose Daniel knowing he had been Ascended and I suspect the program tried and failed to suppress Daniel because you know what a pain in the ass he can be when he wants something; and he wanted to destroy the Ori. The whole crew of the _Stromos_ couldn't destroy Daniel. A machine never had a chance."

"Did you try to tell Daniel this?" Sam asked.

"It's too metaphysical a distinction for Daniel," Jack said, which made Sam's eyebrows climb up into her forehead, not because Jack was wrong but because he had said it at all. Jack waved a dismissive hand. "It if acted like a person and talked to him like a person Daniel would treat it like a person; or something left over from his Ascension let Daniel hear and feel and sense things that I couldn't, even with the Ancient gene. Daniel's god damned empathy for anything and everything is a strength and a weakness. It's why he stayed in the fucking chair as long as he did."

Sam nodded. "Merlin had given him the power of telekinesis. I didn't understand why he just didn't use it to shut off the anti-Prior device. But you're saying Daniel was still in control at that point."

"And Daniel wanted to be deployed. Daniel doesn't want to take command, ever. He thinks he has to turn off all his emotions to make a command decision and when he's just him he does that without a second thought. He's been doing that since he blew a vat of baby snakes all to hell on Chulak. But this time was different. This time he was in possession of a whole lot of super powers and he needed someone to tell him to go for it and _that someone should have been me!"_

He went quiet after that. Instant shut down and Sam stopped moving right along with him. She had known they would get to the guilt eventually. That was the rant she had stopped earlier. This was thing that was still eating at Jack.

Jack sighed. "He shouldn't have been forced into acting on his own. That only made it worse."

"You can only make decisions based on the information you have," Sam said. "What if you had told him straight up that you were sure it was him, that you knew it was Daniel? I don't think he would have done one thing differently. He knew how tied your hands were by the IOA. You just got done saying that we know how he is when he wants something."

"What I am supposed to do is come to realizations like that when they count, not four days later," Jack growled. His hesitation and the interference from the IOA had forced Daniel to use his powers to take control, which had flipped Daniel's fear of turning into the power mongering monster of his visions. "I should have assessed him in less than five minutes and ordered him into the field with that weapon before the IOA had time to fuck that up, _before_ Adria got suspicious about her pet Prior's unexplained absence and ran back to her ship. If she's actually dead, maybe it was better the way it went down; taking her out was a plus that wasn't in the original plan. But the delay in interrogation and evaluation brought the mission way too close to failure; and that's on me."

"If you had acted against the wishes of the IOA-" Sam began.

Jack ground his voice back to a normal level with effort. "The mission objective would have been secured before anyone could have stopped us. I'd have accepted whatever shit hit the fan after that. It shouldn't have all hit Daniel."

"But it left you in a position to protect him and you did. The other way _both_ of you are under fire. You have to protect your rank and power first, Jack. I hated the idea of you going to DC and you know that. I hate how far away you are and what that does to _us_. But the minute they created the IOA we needed you right where you are. You're the only one who can stand between us and them."

Sam stood up and went around the table, forcing herself in his lap. She hardly ever sat in Jack's lap but she needed to touch. She wound her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry. I know you hate when I make it about you and how important you are. You want to make this about how you let Daniel down and I want to make sure you know that's not what happened. I love you and I know you're being tortured by not being able to command the way you used to. I know you miss the team. I know you miss me and I know you're pushing all that down to be what everyone else needs you to be."

Sam leaned forward and touched her lips to his. The charge that was always there at any contact between her skin and his flared up instantly. Sam felt something stir deep in the contact, an impulse to seize control, a tenuous thrill of desire, a flutter of relief because he was with her and she understood.

Jack tilted his head to look up at her. His expression softened and there was a hint of a smile in the curve of his mouth. He put his hand on the back of her head and scrunched her fingers into the soft tousled hair. Sam stroked down his chest and belly, up the inside of his arm, over his shoulder and collarbone. Her eyes followed the path of her hand. She wasn't stroking to arouse him, though it was sure as hell doing that. She was touching him to draw him out of himself because touching was the way Jack processed his world. She paused to lay her palm against the side of his rugged, handsome, tired face; thumbing the cheekbone.

"But I'm the only one who needs you right now," Sam said, kissing him again. Her hand dropped to hover over his groin. She kissed behind his ear and down his neck, feeling the movement under his jeans. She let her hand fall and lay still, feeling his response. "Take me to bed, Jack." His name turned into a low moan as Jack reached under her sweatshirt and caressed her breast, cupping, holding.

"Can I stare?" He asked, and she heard the breathless laughter in his voice now clearly.

"Yes," she said, in the same way, smiling as she kissed him. "You can do whatever you want."

(0)


	141. Chapter 141

**Something very light and fluffy before we get into gritty stuff like Continuum and Ark of the Truth.**

**(0)**

Her regular cell phone rang ; not the encrypted one on which she only ever got calls from Jack. This was the one that said Gen. O'Neill on the caller ID. She answered it quickly but carefully.

"Carter," she said.

But it wasn't Jack's voice on the other end. It was Jett.

"_Hi, Sam_."

"Jett! Hi! What's up?"

There was a pause and Sam could hear Jack in the background. "_Go ahead."_

Jett's voice was whispered and he was clearly not talking to her. "_What if she says no?"_

"_She won't say no." "Are you sure?" "Ask her."_

"Jett!" Sam said, loud enough to get his attention back.

"_I'm here."_

"What's going on?"

"_I need a favor," _he answered in a rush.

"Well whatever it is, I'll do it," Sam answered.

She could feel him breathing into the phone. "_You don't even know what it is."_

"Doesn't matter," she said, with a smile, "unless you want me to climb a ladder and get you the moon, I'll do it."

"_That's not possible."_

"For me to do anything you want right now?"

"_No, the ladder and the moon thing."_

Sam's heart did a little somersault because sometimes talking to Jett was just like talking to Jack. "What do you need?"

"_My class at school, well the fifth and sixth grade class… We're having a dance for Valentine's Day."_

"Oh," Sam said, "You want advice on how to ask out a girl?"

"_No! It's not that kind of dance. It's a father/daughter, mother/son dance. It's to raise money so we can go to camp this summer. I really want to go, um to camp that is and I was kind of thinking that you would want to go with me- To the dance not to camp."_

It took Sam a moment to process what he was actually asking her to do. "You want me to go with you to a mother/son dance to help raise money to go to camp?"

"_Yeah, it's help with scholarships for the kids who can't afford it. Dad said it was okay to ask you and you're supposed to come that weekend anyway. It's Friday the fifteenth. Can we go?"_

"Of course we can. I'd be happy to."

She could hear him talking to Jack again, his voice low. "_She said she would go_!" "_I told you she would_," Jack answered.

"_Thanks Sam_!" Jett said happily, "_I gotta get ready for hockey practice. You want to talk to Dad?"_

She almost said yes but then remembered that this was the regular cell. "No. I can talk to him later. Have fun at hockey practice. Love you."

"_Love you too, Sam. Bye."_

The connection clicked off and Sam spent a moment gazing at it affectionately, wondering what on earth someone wore to an elementary school dance.

(0)


	142. Chapter 142

Sam chose a royal blue dress and topped it with a black linen jacket, low heeled black shoes and a simple gold necklace. Jack had gotten Jett a dark blue suit that made him look older and hinted at the handsome man he would one day be. He bounced out of his room looking shy and excited all at the same time.

Jack followed his son at a more sedate pace and eyed Sam up and down. "Wow," he said, "When you get home, I should take you someplace myself. Late dinner?"

"We just went to dinner last night, for Valentine's Day," she reminded him.

He had beamed them to San Francisco for a late supper at Top of the Mark. It had been wonderful.

"So I can't take you out two nights in a row when I barely see you two nights in row?"

Sam smiled. "Okay, fine. That sounds great. But what about Jett?"

"I can call Emily," Jack said. "If she can come will you have dinner with me and wear that dress?"

"I'd love to," she smiled, "Two dates in one night. Lucky me."

Jack leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Have fun, you two. Jett, have her back by eleven."

"Dad," Jett groaned.

Jack ruffled his son's hair and then told Sam, "There's a car for you at the curb. The driver will wait for you at the school."

Jack kissed the corner of her mouth and waved to them from the door. He watched until they got into the elevator and then went back into the condo to wait for their return.

(0)

Sam had become an expert at explaining her relationship with General O'Neill in ways that were completely honest and still revealed nothing. In some ways it was his fault, he had trained her in Special Forces interrogation methods, ways to do exactly what she was doing with the other parents of the Merritt Academy's fifth and sixth grade students. There were less than 25 children between the two classes. The school was very small and _very _private.

But there were quite a few curious mothers and fathers who had only met Jett's paternal parent and were curious where Sam had come from all of a sudden.

"I served with the General on a Special taskforce for over eight years," she told them. "I've known Jett for quite a while. Let's say the General trusts me with him."

Of course that freed up a couple of the dads to flirt with her, once she'd made it pretty clear the relationship she had with Jett's dad was. But that was fine too because every guy who flirted with her reminded her of how much she was in love with Jack. They were for the most part all powerful men – Senators, Congressmen, DC business men, one or two from independently wealthy families, some were even handsome.

None of them were Jack O'Neill. None of them ever would be.

The theme for the dance was Carnival. There were a series of games set up around the edges of the gym: bean bag toss, tic-tac-toe, softball toss, fishing pond, cake walk, can knockdown and dart throw. There was also a free-throw competition under the basketball hoop. Sam held back just enough on her skills not to outshine everyone and let loose with them just enough to make sure Jett was having a good time.

They danced to some fun things like Hokey Pokey, Bunny Hop and Freeze Dance (all of which Jett had learned in gym class). When the music got slow Jett admitted that Jack had taught him some basic steps so that he wouldn't feel stupid. Sam smiled, because the kid had some pretty good moves all on his own when the music got faster.

She also remembered dancing the previous evening with Jack at Top of the Mark.

"Your great grandfather taught your dad," Sam told him, "So that's kind of a family tradition."

"He did?" Jett asked, then grinned, "That's kind of cool."

"_Where did you learn to dance?" Sam had asked him, as they passed by a window with San Francisco glittering at their feet. "The Academy?"_

"_Nah, my grandfather," Jack answered. "He said it was how he won over my grandmother. They used to go dancing all the time." Jack had spun her in a graceful circle and then whispered, "He told me to make love in the bedroom, but if I wanted to seduce someone, do it on the dance floor."_

_Sam had looked at him with sparkling eyes, "Are you trying to seduce me?"_

"_Is it working?" Jack had countered._

_To which she had only been able to laugh._

Dancing with Jett being held at a respectable arms' distance Sam kind of doubted that Jack had shared that particular bit of wisdom with his son; not just yet anyway. But as she danced with Jett to _You are the Sunshine of My Life_ she watched his expression go from concentration to relaxation and finally to a huge grin that told her how much fun he was having. It was Jack's grin in miniature, every time – brash with a ready-for-trouble gleam in his eye. Sam had wondered if she would enjoy herself at this school function but found that she was. She was caught up in the whirlwind that was Jett O'Neill. Even when she balked at trying something – like the Limbo – Jett just dragged her along like a toy so beloved it didn't have much stuffing left. Sam thought about asking Jack how he handled things like that and then realized that Jack probably fared no better than she.

"Does Dad have pictures of my great grandfather?" Jett asked, later, over chicken nuggets and French fries from one of the food booths.

"I'm sure he does," Sam answered. "But you'll have to ask him. I don't know if he has any at the condo. A lot of his things are in storage in Colorado Springs."

"Do you have the key?"

"I do, one of them," Sam answered, "But your father should probably come get them. I'm not sure I could find them. His organizational style leaves something to be desired."

Jett grinned again. Just as they finished their snack and tossed the trash, the DJ started playing the Macarena. Sam groaned and said, "Jett-"

"Come on," he laughed, "I'll teach you. It's easy!"

(0)


	143. Chapter 143

**This is the tag to Unending, which of course, unfortunately, makes the entire Sunshine and Shadow/Moonlight and Steel Universe of my imagining an AU. Until THIS, the very last episode, it was possible to keep Jillian off screen and canon to the series as we know it. But because of events in Unending that don't even actually ever happen, that is no longer possible. There is no way the Daniel Jackson I know would cheat on his wife. (In canon this episode is an absolute mess but I won't go into that here.) This chapter exists to explain why Jack is not on the Odyssey, because it is inconceivable to me that Thor would not ask for Jack to be there before the Asgard committed mass suicide.**

**(0)**

"I can get to the bathroom myself," Jack grumbled.

"I don't have any doubts about that," Sam answered.

"Then why are you following me?"

"Well you can get there just fine but what if you fall once you're in there?"

"Carter," he growled.

"Jack," there was just enough misery and pleading in her voice to take the grumpy right out of him.

After all the close calls they'd had over a decade of service to the SGC, and everything Jack had gone through in Special Forces, Sam had almost lost him because of a drunk driver on Interstate 495 – the infamous DC Beltway.

She'd never been so grateful for the technology that had given them side impact air bags. The car had been totaled but Jack, and his driver, had survived. But the accident had left Jack with a broken arm, collar bone, cracked ribs and – oh yes, the need to finally have at least one knee completely replaced.

The cast on his arm was making getting around on a new knee tricky at best. He was supposed to be going to physical therapy but he had only just mastered the walker the day before. The broken bones were preventing that from happening. Sam had virtually moved in with Jack and they had sent Jett to Edora for a few weeks, since school was out anyway.

Jack was not a patient man, and he was very impatient with his current physical restrictions. Everything was hard and it was a good thing they already had years of experience with each other in the field and the last few years of intimacy to make all of this somewhat easier. If she could find a way to improve his mood over the next eight weeks of healing, that would be a blessing.

They got to the bathroom, where Jack abandoned the walker in favor of leaning on the bathroom counter. He hovered in the doorway with one hand on the counter and stayed there for a moment. Sam came in beside him and eyed the toilet on the opposite wall.

"I know you've always been proud of your distance and aim but even you can't hit that from here," she said.

Jack tilted his head and gave her a fake, forced grin. "You're funny."

Sam slung his arm over her shoulders, wrapped her arm around his waist and pulled him off the counter. "Come on, I've got you," she said.

"I can do this myself," Jack said, through gritted teeth.

"Right, "Sam said, "You were in a car accident four days ago. You've got one hand and one good leg. You've only just started using the walker. Now are you going to let me help you or are you going to pee all over the floor like a puppy?"

Fortunately she had heard him curse before so she was unaffected by the heated muttering that accompanied their trip across the bathroom. Sam saw the set in his jaw that said he was now determined to get well enough to stand on his own two feet just so he could have bathroom privacy again. Pride made him bully her out the door. Stubbornness kept him on his feet long enough to do what was necessary and get back to the bathroom door.

By the time he reached it all his energy and all the useful emotions he had were gone. So he let Sam help position him back behind the walker and back out to the living room, where he collapsed on the couch and kicked the walker out of the way with his good leg.

"You were a whole lot easier to take care of when you were mostly sleeping," Sam commented. "Before I sit down, is there something you want?"

He shot her a sour look and the immediately repented. "I'm sorry I'm being such a jerk."

"You're not used to being off your game," she said, "At least the timing isn't horrible. We got Atlantis back, the Wraith and the Replicators are fighting with each other and we've got a few leads on this ark of Daniel's. The Ori have been shockingly quiet. You can stay in touch with everyone on your phone and your laptop; and you've got me."

"Yeah, I just can't walk," he grumbled again.

"That isn't going to be forever. You've wanted to have the knee surgery forever and everything has made you keep putting it off. Now it's done."

Jack let out a long breath and dropped his head back against the couch. "Yeah."

Sam studied him for a moment and then said, "Wait there."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Like I have a choice," he growled as she left the room.

A moment later she came back with a box and two odd looking fishing poles.

"What the hell?" He asked. She plopped down next to him and handed him the box. He peered at it suspiciously and then raised his eyebrows.

"The Strike?" He said.

"It's for the Wii. I know the Wii is technically Jett's but I'm pretty sure he won't mind if we do a little fishing while you recover."

"You bought me a virtual fishing game?"

"It's supposed to be the best one on the market. You up for giving it a try?"

Jack was pulling the box open, awkwardly, one-handedly, and then reading through the directions. "Yeah, put it in. Let's see."

Sam loaded the game and then plopped down on the couch beside him while it loaded. She leaned over his good arm to look at the paper he was holding.

Jack abruptly put it down to slide his arm around her shoulders and pull her close.

"I'm a complete dick sometimes," he murmured into her hair.

"I won't argue," she murmured back, nuzzling against his jaw.

Jack snorted, kissed her forehead. "At least I know you'll let me be right some of the time. Thank you for this," he picked up the fishing rod to indicate what he was talking about, "and for being here."

"Fishing is one of the few things I know you'll do sitting still," she said.

"Yeah, you're right about that. I love you, you know."

"Yeah, I do," she answered. "Want to do some fishing?"

"Oh yeah," he said, with the first hum of pleasure in his voice that Sam had heard in days.

(0)

Two days later Jack had gotten the hang of his new knee and graduated to a cane. He still had a long way to go but he wasn't nearly as grumpy. He was sitting at the kitchen table watching Sam make stir fry when the doorbell rang.

"I'll go," she said.

He didn't argue. Whoever it was would leave before he could get there. That didn't stop him from listening with every sense he had. It was official. He could tell that immediately. He heard Sam say, "Major Davis" pretty clearly and then the brief murmur of their voices before she closed the door and came back carrying a manila folder marked Eyes Only.

She handed it to Jack. "It's for you."

"Something they can't email?" Jack said, instantly alert.

Sam shrugged as he tore it open. She also stood back until he finished reading it – twice – even though she was dying of curiosity.

"Hmph," Jack said, unhelpfully.

"What?"

"The Asgard have asked us to come to Orilla, on the Odyssey_. Specifically_ on the Odyssey and they want SG1 on board," he leaned back on the chair and read from it, "The High Council requests our presence at a meeting of great importance."

Sam's eyebrows climbed. "I wonder what they want," she said, sitting down at the chair opposite his. He gave her the message to read on her own. "Well they can have SG1," she said, slowly, "The current incarnation at least. But they can't have you, and you know it."

She saw the argument flare in his eyes, in the sudden tension in his back and shoulders. Then he winced as the tape around his ribs reminded him just how injured he was and the argument died unspoken.

"I know you don't like it," she began.

"I hate it," he said, "But there isn't anything we can do about it. I'll send Hank though; and who knows, by the time we get the Odyssey ready to deploy all the way to Orilla, maybe I'll be recovered enough to go."

Sam gave him a forced smile that she figured didn't fool him for a moment and said, "Yeah, we'll see when we get there."

Jack nodded towards the stove, "Your stir fry is burning."

Sam jumped up and quickly turned the heat off and put the pan on another burner. "You want a beer?"

Jack studied her for a moment, knowing from the tight set of her shoulders and the rigid line of her spine that she was still prepared to fight him about going. Ultimately the doctors would settle it.

"Yeah," he said, gently, because he'd caused her enough grief over the last two weeks, "I'd love one."

(0)


	144. Chapter 144

**This is the final tag for Unending and it is deliberately ambiguous. Read it whatever way makes you happy.**

**(0)**

It was, he knew, the last time he would stand at this console, like this. He had been coming here daily for fifty years, as faithful as any acolyte, to worship at the altar of the Asgard knowledge. He had now spent most of his lifetime absorbing the data. He knew the full history of their race as well as the history of the Ancients. He knew the story of the Four Races. He now knew who and what the Furlings were and where they could be found. He knew everything it was possible for one human mind to absorb from what the Asgard left; yet it wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough to save them from the Ori, and it wasn't enough to satisfy him. He'd learned the hard way that it didn't mean anything, because he didn't have anyone to share it with.

He'd had hallucinations about her countless times: in the halls, in his dreams and sometimes while standing at this very console with limitless knowledge swirling around him. He'd be hypnotized into believing that her scent was hanging in the air, hear her voice calling him. The wrong words or sound could send him falling into memory, surrounded by it. His wife who was his life; his son who was his image, almost his mirror except for hair that was lit with copper and eyes the same dark green as his mother's. It was harder to imagine the daughter who hadn't even been born yet, but he had tried, every day, for fifty years.

It was a trick of perception that had kept his family alive and real to him for all that time. He ached with gratitude for those times even as he grieved anew when those dreams had ended and he was plunged back into loneliness.

Now it would be over. The person he was now, holding all this knowledge was going to die. He was certainly familiar with death and had defeated it in the past but this would be permanent. This self with _these_ memories would die to give his younger self back to his family; to reclaim Jillian and JD and Katie and all the life he had been forced to leave behind.

He's ready. More than ready. Because now he can spend another lifetime learning it all over again with Jillian. The knowledge would remain and if he had absorbed it once he could do it again and faster because now he would have someone to share it with.

His thoughts were interrupted and he turned towards the door. It was Sam. There was a limited number of people it _could_ be. But he knew her footsteps, more beloved now than ever. Sam, their savior, who was not only sending them home but _back_ to exactly the way it had been.

Sam walked up and slipped her arm through his, leaned against him."You ready?"

"Yes," he said.

Sam gestured at the hovering images. "It was always about this," she said, "about bringing this back to Earth. This was the mission. This was the objective."

"You never lost sight of that, Sam," Daniel said, even though he knew there were other reasons. They had all wanted to get back to the ones they loved. "Never got distracted from it, not once."

She smiled, leaned a little closer. "Some things were distracting," she said, lightly. "Couldn't have done any of this without you."

He smiled back at her fondly and pressed a chaste kiss on her forehead.

Sam let go of his arm and took his hand and tugged him towards the door.

"Sam, wait," Daniel said. He cupped her face for a moment and then pulled her into his arms. "I was thinking that, in one of those countless multiverses we know are out there, this…_us…_we happened too."

She smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Yep," she said, smiling softly, "and I bet it was really, _really_ great. Come on. She's waiting for you."

"And _he's_ waiting for you," Daniel said.

"We've all been waiting long enough. Let's go home."

They moved with certainty out the doorway, leaving the soft glow of the display hanging in the empty space behind them

(0)


	145. Chapter 145

**Starting tags to Ark of the Truth. There isn't too much to do with the movie as a whole – as far as missing scenes, etc. It's paced pretty well. But there are some things at the end that are confusing. How did Daniel get to the SGC with the ark so fast? Just how fast IS the Odyssey anyway. It isn't the first time the writers ignored the practical facts of space travel. Fan Fiction exists to fix these things. I am combining Daniel and Jillian's story with Jack and Sam's in these chapters so they will be cross posted with Moonlight and Steel.  
><strong>

**(0)**

Jack stared into the Control room monitor at Sam's beloved face and hung on every word of her report.

"The replicators did considerable damage to the ship, sir. We're through the Super Gate and making our best speed to Earth but it's nowhere near what this ship can usually do in hyper drive. The beaming system has been taken offline for repairs and wouldn't make it across this distance even if we wanted it to."

"There are seven Ori ships in orbit around Earth, Colonel," Jack said, pointedly, "and the weapon that can stop them is on that ship."

Sam digested that information with a grim expression. "I understand, sir, but-"

"I can come to you," Jack cut her off and watched as she processed that for a moment, watched her get it.

"The _Jarrett,"_ she breathed in relief. Her eyes locked with Jack's, shining with warmth and affection, but composed, professional. "You can meet us out here within a few hours and get back to Earth just as quickly."

"It's a fast ship," Jack said, with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Can make the Kessel run in 12 parsecs."

Sam made a wry face and shook her head a little at his sarcasm. But she said, "Take it. You've got all the access codes. Once you're in space we'll set up a rendezvous point. The ark will be ready. We've got some badly injured people that should be taken with you too."

"I'll bring along some help," Jack answered.

"I'll make sure everything is ready."

"I know you will," Jack said, then softly he added. "Sam?"

"Yes, sir?"

"When we pull this off," he said, slowly, "the war will be over. All this… It will. Be. _Over_."

It took a little longer to process that very personal message, despite the risky, intense, loaded look in Jack's eyes. She was dealing with a crisis on a ship that was being held together with duct tape and wire, whose commander was still in surgery, placing everything on her shoulders. But when she got what Jack was trying to say she inhaled a little. Her eyes grew wide and then she smiled. "Yes, sir," she said.

The Bridge behind Sam was a hive of activity, voices, repairs, machinery and consoles humming and sparking. The Control Room around Jack was the same – reports, orders, machinery clicking. But it was as if they had momentarily stepped into a private bubble, shielded from the chaos, where nothing existed but the two of them.

"It was close, sir." There was the slightest quaver in her voice; a hint of tears in her eyes.

"I know."

"But we got up. We all got up."

"Yeah," Jack said. He was shaking too, overwhelmed with relief and pride and love. "You did. But I never doubted that you would."

They stayed in that bubble for perhaps a little longer than was entirely safe and it was Sam who switched back first. "I'll send our flight plan and trajectory to the navigation system on the _Jarrett._ You should have everything you need on board already."

"I'll contact you as soon as we break orbit," Jack said.

"Roger that," she answered.

"Out," Jack said and they broke the connection.

Landry came out of his office, having given the President word that they had found the ark and it was being brought to Earth ASAP.

"What did he say?" Jack asked.

"Keep sending groups to the other sites just in case. Let him know as soon as the weapon arrives. He wants to talk to you too," Hank answered.

Jack's expression turned grim, "I want to talk to him too. This IOA thing has gotten out of hand. There's no way in hell I'm letting them pick Weir's successor now. But right now I have to go pick up an ark."

"What do you need?" Hank asked.

"I need medical personal, engineers, technicians, anyone who can help get the _Odyssey_ back up to speed while it's still in flight. I can take as many as fifty."

"You got it, but can I ask what exactly you plan taking them _on_?"

"I got a friend with a starship, gonna let me use it."

Hank eyed him curiously, "You've got some powerful friends, Jack."

O'Neill nodded. "And some incredibly talented ones. Oh! One more thing. Is Jillian on the Base?"

"Yes," Hank said, "We sent her father and her son through with the first group of people to the Delta site, but she refused to go."

Jack wasn't the least surprised. "Can you get her to come up here? I want her to come along."

"Walter!" Landry called.

"Already on it, sir!"

Hank shrugged at Jack. "He's already on it."

"Some things," Jack said, gladly, "never change."

(0)

Jillian looked twice as pregnant as she had the last time Jack had seen her. Still, he wasn't taking her into combat and after what Daniel had just gone through to attain their salvation, he was pretty sure the guy wouldn't mind seeing his wife much earlier than he had anticipated. He was taking a whole complement of medical personnel and Jillian would be on a state of the art starship.

Besides, there were seven Ori ships in orbit around Earth that might just decide to open fire before the _Jarrrett O'Neill_ could get them back with the ark. In that event, Jillian was safer with Jack, several million light years from that.

Daniel might yell at him, but he'd probably be grateful underneath all the hollering and that was all that mattered.

Jillian didn't hesitate to say yes. She said it even before Jack had finished speaking. "Yes. When do we leave?"

"Half hour," Jack said, "I want everyone assembled in the Gate Room for beam out to the _Jarrett."_

"I'll be there," she promised.

(0)


	146. Chapter 146

There was an observation window above the flight deck that enabled Sam to watch the _Jarrett O'Neill _come in for a perfect landing. Jack brought the ship in from space and set it down like a swan lighting on a lake. Sam smiled in spite of the situation. Yes, the ship handled like a dream and it was her first most beloved nonorganic thing in the world – after Jack and Jett and her team and her family.

But it was still awesome to watch Jack O'Neill at the controls of anything that flew.

The warning lights along the sides of the docking bay doors changed from red to green as the bay pressurized. The moment the 'all clear' alarm sounded, ramps came down from all sides of the _Jarrett O'Neill_ and personnel began pouring out of it like ants from a disturbed nest. At the same time, Sam could feel the rumble in the floor as the door below her opened up to let the _Odyssey _personnel into the bay.

It wasn't hard to pick out Jack, though Sam thought she'd been seeking him out for so long that it was automatic at this point.

He came striding down a forward ramp with an ease of motion given to him by his new right knee. She knew from experience that his movement was virtually silent. The idea that a man that tall, that athletic, could move with that much silence and grace should be unnerving. Instead it made her pulse beat harder.

Drawn to her in much the same way, Jack looked up at the window. Their eyes met and she couldn't quite stop the brilliant smile that she gave him. His eyebrows lifted and she caught the welcoming twinkle in his eye just before she turned to leave the room. She attempted a dignified pace through the busy corridor, but the stairs to the docking bay were deserted and Sam fairly flew in her eagerness to see Jack again.

(0)

Daniel came through the door first, saw Jack and headed for him. There were four Marines behind him, pushing a metal cart that held the long coveted Ark of Truth. They stopped inches from each other as the Marines went passed them to the cargo hold of the ship, looking at each other – Daniel in weary triumph and Jack in deep concern. Daniel looked punch drunk but still on his feet, still determined to go the next round before leaving the ring.

Jack put a hand on Daniel's shoulder and let it rest there lightly. Touch was how Jack O'Neil processed his world. He wasn't ever certain about the survival of any of his team until he had a hand on them somehow.

"Walked straight into the lion's den this time, didn't you?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Daniel smiled in a tired, self-deprecating way. "Walked out again though."

"I never doubted you would," Jack said. He let his hand fall away.

Daniel nodded in the direction of the Ark. "You got my report about how to operate that?"

"Yes."

"You know how to turn it on?"

"Yes. You made a diagram and everything. I could handle it, Daniel. But you did all the work. You get to save the planet."

Daniel closed his eyes. "It's not that. But if I know someone I trust also knows how to make it work, I might just collapse for a while."

Jack's eyebrows crinkled in concern but he knew better than to fuss over Daniel. "I got it," he said, because that was the only kind of reassurance Daniel wanted.

For about another three seconds, Daniel resisted handing over the burden he had been carrying for months. Then he slumped so badly Jack reached out a hand in case he had to catch him.

"Hey," Jack said.

Daniel looked up but a movement behind Jack caught his attention. His entire demeanor changed as his gaze fell on Jillian. He straightened up and an expression of astonishment appeared on his face.

"Oh yeah," Jack said, casually, "I brought Jillian with me."

In a deadpan voice, with no hint of emotion, Daniel said, "You brought my pregnant wife millions of light years from home?"

For another instant Jack wasn't sure how to read Daniel's reaction. Gearing up for a fight he said, "Yeah."

Daniel exhaled. His face crumbled with something near tears. His voice shook in the way it did when he had been hanging by a thread and then realized he was suddenly and shockingly safe. "Thank you," he choked out.

Then he was running towards Jillian and Jack watched him go and said, quietly, "You're welcome."

(0)

Daniel ran. Jillian had reached the point where any sudden or swift movement could throw her off balance, so her steps towards him were more measured, if no less anxious.

He closed the distance between them and wrapped her tightly in his arms. Jillian let out a soft _oh god_ and melted into embrace. It was awkward trying to hold her as tightly as he wanted, but Daniel got an arm around her waist anyway, one hand on her head, fingers threaded into her hair, his face buried against her neck and shoulder.

In the way his body desperately sought to fit against hers, Jillian could feel all the things that had been in the reports. The joints and tendons strained from being hauled around half-conscious, chest and ribs bruised, the aching hip and knee from being thrown onto a stone cell floor, the near-dislocated shoulder that somehow hadn't broken when he had been flung against a wall; the deeper, lingering quiver in soft tissue, the sick resonance left behind by pain delivered on a cellular level, the clinging hum of torture deep in his soul. It ebbed, some, as she pulled Daniel close.

"Jill," he gasped, shifting her even closer, breathing her, feeling her, with no intention of letting go until he began to believe that she was really here.

"It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay. You did it, Daniel. You did it."

Jillian kept holding him, grounding him, until she couldn't feel him shaking anymore, until the tension had gone from Daniel's shoulders and back, until her own heart had stopped thundering against her ribs.

"Where's JD?" He asked, his voice muffled in her hair, soft in her ear.

"He went to the Delta site with my dad in the first group that was evacuated."

"So now we have to explain to him about the Stargate?"

"He's two, Daniel. He won't remember it."

They had started swaying, as if they were dancing. "I'll go get him, when it's all over, when it's safe again."

Jillian clutched at him. "No," she said, "Please don't leave me again. Just let Dad bring him home."

Daniel leaned back to look at her and his eyes darkened with surprise. He put a gentle hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. "Okay," he said and then he leaned in. Her eyes slid closed as his lips touched hers, brushed hers, breathed, pressed a little closer. Her lips parted, her mouth opened under his. For a long time there was nothing but their kiss - warm lips, wet tongue, hungry possessiveness, stunned relief, melting tenderness.

When they finally separated Jillian looked dizzy and on the verge of tears.

"Don't cry," he said, anxiously.

She laughed softly and rested her forehead against his chest. "You should recognize happy tears by now."

"Just making sure," Daniel said. He smiled at her, stroked fingers down her cheek and hooked her loose hair behind her ear. Let's go home, Jill. Let's be done with the Ori, once and for all."

Jillian nodded but couldn't speak. Daniel stopped her by pulling her forward for another kiss with a promise of forever in it.

(0)

Jack couldn't run to Sam when he saw her. He wanted to, but he was hemmed in by the oncoming tide of people and things going back to Earth on the _Jarrett O'Neill_. When the space between them was finally eradicated, he shocked the hell out of her by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in.

Sam stiffened in shock and then tried to make it something professional, a quick squeeze around his waist, catch-and-release, the relieved reunion of two people who had served together for a long time. But Jack only pulled her in closer and put his face in her hair. She lasted another heartbeat or two and then softened, relaxed in deep gratitude.

Her flight suit smelled of embattled spaceship, the scents of breach sealant and burned circuitry and fire-suppression chemicals that got into stowed gear so that even freshly issued uniforms reeked of damage control. All around them swirled the ordered chaos of new personnel reporting and old personnel getting everything stowed safely on board. Gurneys were being wheeled passed them now and Jack caught a flash of long black hair and knew that Mal Doran was coming along with Mitchell without having to be told.

It was all right. He was prepared to be generous to people who had nearly lost the one they loved. He had been one of them for much too long.

Sam took the opportunity to whisper frustration to him, since his ear was so close. "The IOA screwed this ship, Jack. It's … It's _fucked._"

He cut her off before she could really get started because Sam rarely cursed and when she did it was because she was beyond furious. Sam was articulate and precise and would tell him exactly what systems were in what state. So when she was reduced to single harsh expletives it was better to keep her away from the firearms.

"I know," he said, quickly, "I know and I'll deal with them. I suspect they're already in Hayes' office getting an earful."

"What will happen now?" She came down off the balls of her feet and let go of him, looking up. Jack kept his arms around her, holding a hug that gone way passed blink-worthy and straight into the realm of absurdly extended. "Can you disband them?"

"Probably not, but there's going to be some serious changes in personnel and the 'A' better go back to meaning 'advisory and I'm taking control of Atlantis back. It needs a military commander and that should be obvious at this point to anyone with half a brain cell."

They stood there, staring into each other's eyes with silent conversations about what it meant to command, and what it meant to run an installation like Atlantis, understanding and commiserating at the same time.

"Who do they want to replace Elizabeth?"

"Shen Xiaoyi," Jack answered, shortly.

"What?"

"Yeah."

"Oh my god."

"The Langford-Littlefield Foundation funds over half of the Atlantis project. I can get them to back me on the military thing, especially in light of what the IOA just did here."

"Who do you want to send?" She asked.

They were interrupted briefly by a technician with a requisition form for Sam to sign, accepting the latest shipments of supplies. He didn't so much as twitch, considering that Sam had to turn in the General's arms to sign it. Apparently if Major General Jack O'Neill wanted to hold onto his former 21C, that was pretty much just fine with lowly crewmen.

"Gerald Mallory," Jack answered when the technician walked away. Sam's eyebrows went up. But Jack went on, "He's been promoted to Brigadier General, he's got ten years' experience off world, a solid head on his shoulders, kept his team safe all that time."

"Makes sense," Sam said. She hesitated a moment and then said, "What about us? You understand what this means?"

"It means it didn't last the rest of our lives. We held on and it paid off. We can start making plans, revisit some options we had to abandon." He leaned forward against her head. "We can take a breath for a moment."

He was so close he felt her smile, more than saw it. "You can fix your other knee."

"That too, I guess."

"You better. I can tell how hard it is for you to get around on it now, comparing it to how you move the new one; and I want you to be able to dance with me at our wedding."

Now Jack leaned back sharply and it was his eyebrows that climbed. "Wedding huh?"

"Yeah," she said, softly. "Once this is done, once Daniel topples one more set of false gods, a wedding better be one of the things you intend for us to start planning."

Jack knew he was looking at her with uncensored goofy adoration and for the first time in a very very long time, _he just did not care_ who saw it.

He squeezed her one more time and then let go. "We've got some paperwork to finish so I can take Daniel to slay one more dragon. Then we'll plan whatever you want."

(0)

An hour later Sam was back at the window watching the _Jarrett O'Neill _smoothly lift off from the flight deck. The ship turned gracefully and sailed out into the blackness beyond. Sam watched it until it was just a sliver of metal and saw the flash that told her they had jumped into hyperspace.

"Go get 'em, Daniel," she said, quietly. She hit the comm unit for the Bridge and told them, "Make the jump whenever you're ready." A moment later she felt the lurch in the floor that told her they had jumped as well. "All right," she murmured with satisfaction. "Let's go home."

(0)


	147. Chapter 147

**The Ori are defeated and the SGC gets to have a few months of domestic tranquility. SG-1 gets a little R & R. They all deserve it. This will be a few chapters of fluff combined with some serious stuff, at least for Sam and Jack.**

**(0)**

"Exactly how many men does it take to put together a toddler bed?" Vala asked. She was walking around the living area of the great room with JD on her hip, listening to him talking about his afternoon at the park the day before while Sam and Jillian got things out of the fridge for the barbecue.

It was the 4th of July, three weeks to the day that the Ori Priors had been shown the truth and had departed the Milky Way for their own galaxy. There was a crowd of people in the Jacksons' backyard and in the pool, on the deck and in the downstairs game room. But there was also a crowd in JD's room because someone had mentioned that his toddler bed was still in the box and that just didn't set well for some of their friends.

"How many are in there?" Jillian asked, with some alarm. JD's room actually wasn't all that big.

"Well, Daniel, Teal'c, Cameron, Scotty, General Mallory, Rusty."

"Mal's in there too?" Jillian asked.

She and Sam opened a bag of tomatoes and started cutting into them into slices.

"Yep," Vala said, spinning around with JD until he laughed. "I think he and Teal'c are taking the crib apart." She went to the breakfast bar and got JD a cube of watermelon that he ate with the juice running down his chin. Vala mopped it up with a napkin from the basket on the counter. Jillian smiled at her indulgently. It wasn't often that Vala's thwarted instincts for mothering came bubbling out. But JD had decided he adored her and Vala had given up resisting.

"I hope they're using tools," Sam commented. Jillian threw another alarmed look at her.

"Teal'c should be able to just pick the crib up and carry it, shouldn't he?" Vala said.

"I don't think it would come through the door. It's on wheels. If we could get it through the door and around the corner into Katie's room Daniel would have done it."

Vala spun around again, this time to look at Jillian. JD giggled nonetheless. "I just realized who you're naming your daughter after," she said, "Catherine Langford."

"Yes," Jillian shrugged as if it was no big secret. "We wouldn't have even met if not for Catherine. Our children wouldn't exist if not for Catherine."

"I suppose." Vala began, pausing to make a silly face at JD while he pulled her hair down over her face. "She'll have your name in the middle, like you did for JD?"

"Yes, Daniel insisted," Jillian sighed.

"And will you call her KJ? Or CJ?"

"We decided to spell it with a 'K', but neither. I've been calling her Katie for months now and Daniel calls her Kitten. I suspect they'll both stick. JD became JD because he's named for two very powerful men and he needs his own identity."

Sam and Vala exchanged a look and then Sam said, "The same can be said of your daughter."

Jillian blushed slightly. "Well, thank you, but I have a hard time imagining anyone calling Catherine Langford 'Katie'."

"I'm sure Katie will fit your daughter perfectly." Vala said.

JD spoke up then. "Mama, I want to go swimming. You can take me to the pool now?"

Jillian inhaled and hesitated, uncertain how to tell her son that she didn't feel very much like getting in the water at the moment.

"I'll take him," Vala said, quickly. She smiled too brightly, wanting to take him and looking as if she expected Jillian to say no.

"Are you sure?" Jillian said.

Vala was already wearing her swimsuit, with a saucy skirt tied around her hips that matched it.

"I'd love to," she said. "JD and I are good friends. Aren't we, JD?"

"Uh-huh," JD said, nodding vigorously. "Bala makes my heart laugh."

Sam and Jillian laughed, and Vala managed to gasp out a little one, though it seemed to the others that her eyes misted a little. "Right, then," she said, swallowing and sniffing. "So I can take you, JD? What do you think?"

"It's all right, JD. You can go with Vala," Jillian said.

"Okay?" Vala asked.

JD nodded. "Okay, Bala take me."

"Is there something that he's supposed to wear in the pool? A swimsuit? Trunks?" Vala asked.

Instead of answering, Jillian called loudly, "Daniel!"

He appeared instantly, as if conjured, coming as far as the entrance into the Great Room and saying, anxiously, "What? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, patiently. "Can you get one of JD's Little Swimmers? Vala wants to take him out to the pool."

Daniel looked hesitant. "You'll keep an eye on him?" he asked Vala pointedly.

"No, Daniel," Vala said, still carrying JD but following Daniel back in the direction of the kids' rooms. "I was planning on getting in the water with your precious son and just ignoring him."

"Don't even joke," Daniel snapped.

"Well give me _some_ credit!"

Their voices faded and Sam shook her head as she poured a glass of strawberry lemonade. "Do you think those two will ever have a different relationship?" she asked.

"I hope not," Jillian answered, with a small affectionate smile. "Daniel never had siblings and he never fell into the habit of fighting with you like one, and he still fights with Jack more like a teenaged son than a brother. But Vala – Vala is the one he argues with like siblings."

Sam grinned back at her. "So why is Daniel acting like he's standing on broken glass with you? You're not due for, what, three weeks?"

Jillian sighed and accepted the glass Sam poured for her. "It's kind of my fault. The last time I went into labor I didn't tell him for like twenty-four hours."

"What? Jillian!" Sam was stunned for a moment, because it just didn't seem like the kind of thing that Jillian would keep from Daniel.

"Well in my own defense I wasn't even sure that's what it was, and it was the middle of the night. Daniel was asleep. I didn't want both of us to be exhausted by the time things got serious."

"Well that makes sense, I guess. But now he's watching you like a hawk in case you do it again?"

"Yes, even though I promised him I wouldn't do it again."

Vala reappeared with JD dressed for the pool and with Daniel chasing after her with a bottle of sunscreen. They vanished out the sliding door onto the deck having an animated conversation about when to reapply it. Daniel came back a little bit later and started for the bedrooms, but then turned around and said, "Jill? You still all right?"

"I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"My feet hurt. They've hurt for the last three months. I'm hot but that's why I am staying inside in the air conditioning and Sam is keeping me company. Other than that, yes, I'm fine."

"Okay."

"Daniel!"

"How is everything going out there? Do they need anything."

"Nope. Everyone is just having a good time, relaxing."

"Good. Okay. Daniel?"

"What?"

"Is there any chance that toddler bed is going to be together by the time JD needs his afternoon nap?"

"I'm not sure it matters. By the time she gets done wearing him out in the pool and we feed him something, he'll be so tired he'll crash on the first flat surface he's offered."

Jillian took a moment to consider that. "You're probably right. He tends to sleep like his father."

Daniel wrinkled his nose at her in a mock grin. "He's got his mother's temper." He held his finger up, "Do _not_ argue with me about that. Last week he lost his mind because he couldn't get the oven door open. So we got him to calm down, opened it, let him look inside and when we shut it and locked it, he went ballistic for an hour trying to get it open again."

"Oh, I don't know, Daniel," Sam said, "There's a little bit of you in that story. That sounds more like your stubborn determination to get what you want and be a pain in the ass about it until you do."

Jillian choked on the strawberry lemonade she'd been about to swallow. Sam patted her between the shoulder blades. "Oh my god," Jillian said, when she could talk again, "All Daniel's stubbornness and all of my temper? My dear husband, what have we unleashed on the world?"

Daniel looked as solemn as he could and then smiled, in that blinding way that only Daniel could because his smiles were so rare. He walked back across the great room, around the counter and over to Jillian. Putting his arms around her gently, he kissed her ear and said. "I can't wait to find out."

(0)


	148. Chapter 148

Daniel never did make it back into his son's room. Teal'c appeared after a little bit and announced that the crib was up in Katie's room. As Daniel and Jillian thanked him the doorbell rang. Teal'c started for it but before he took two steps it opened and a familiar voice called, "Heard there was a party here. Mind if we stop in?"

"Jack!" Daniel said in the same breath that Teal'c said, "O'Neill."

Jack came walking in carrying a bakery box, Jett bouncing in front of him.

"Sam!" Jett yelled.

Startled to speechlessness, Sam could only cross the room from the kitchen as quickly as possible, resisting the need to vault the counter in her eagerness to get to them. She caught Jett in a fierce hug, resting her cheek on the top of his ruffled head for a moment. Teal'c exchanged a hug with Jack and then moved on to Jett, allowing Sam an uninterrupted moment of pure bliss enfolded in Jack's embrace.

"What are you doing here?" she asked happily, face buried in his t-shirt.

"I told you. We heard there was a party," Jack answered.

Sam looked up and it was then that she saw it. There was something lurking in Jack's eyes, behind the obvious pleasure at being back in their company. "What?" She asked, suddenly anxious.

"Nothing. I had a few things to do at the SGC and while I was there I ran into a few old friends…"

The door – already ajar – pushed open a little farther and Jonas Quinn poked his head in. "Is this the barbecue we were told about?"

"Jonas!" The word was said in overlapping tones of joy and surprise by multiple voices. Sam forgot the shadow in Jack's eyes and untangled from him. She got to Jonas first, tackling him in an exuberant hug. They barely got out of the way for the dark-haired woman and the little girl who were following them.

With one arm around Sam, Jonas said, "You guys remember Ashlen? My wife? And this is Ainsley, our daughter."

There were continued greetings all around: Wow, Jillian, look at you! When are you due? That's close huh? Daniel! Yeah it's good to see you again. Ashlen, welcome to Earth, come in. Teal'c! You haven't changed a bit…

Ainsley, black haired, skin the color of dark toast and huge dark eyes, hung back shyly for a little bit. Daniel said to Jett, "Rusty's boys are downstairs playing video games. You want to take Ainsley and head down and join them? I'm sure they'll be glad to see you."

"Sweet," Jett said. He started for the stairs and then turned and gestured for Ainsley. "Come on. They're just going to do grown-up crap now."

"Jett!" Jack said.

"Sorry!" Jett said, but they were halfway to the stairs and he didn't really sound sorry.

"It seems he inherited your respect for authority," Daniel pointed out.

"His father's son," Sam said, drily. But she let the matter drop by changing the subject. "Jonas, what brings you here? It's not like you could have been in the neighborhood."

"There was a scheduled check-in with the Delta site," Jonas said, "I remembered the date as being the one where we all used to get together somewhere to celebrate, and I haven't seen you for a while. I got permission to come through the Gate while it was still dialed up. General O'Neill was there, as it happened and he brought us here."

"Well, I'm glad he did," Jillian said, "We're about to start tossing food on the grill. I hope you still like cheeseburgers?"

"Really?" Jonas said, happily. "With the special sauce?"

"With anything you want," Daniel promised.

Cameron's voice came from down the bedrooms.

"Yo, Jackson, you want to come tell us where you want this bed?" He appeared from the hallway and stopped dead in surprise when he saw who was there. "Jonas! Ashlen! Oh my god, aren't you all a sight for sore eyes."

There were more hugs and explanations and then the guys moved off to arrange the furniture in JD's room. Sam and Jillian herded Ashlen into the Great Room, where Sam went back into the kitchen and started listing the variety of drinks available for Ashlen. Jillian directed her to one of the bar stools and hopped up on one of the others.

"I have no idea what any of that is," Ashen said, shaking her head. "Jonas goes on and on about some of the foods he had on Earth. But I'm really not familiar enough with any of them to choose. What do you recommend?"

Sam grinned. "We'll start with the strawberry lemonade and work our way up to the selection of wines in the basement."

Ashlen grinned and looked relaxed for the first time since coming through the door. "Sounds wonderful!" She said.

(0)

It seemed obvious that all of SG1 past and present would wind up at one table on the deck, even if they had to push two tables together to accomplish it. Daniel was seated against the deck rail, straddling the bench seat so he could rest JD against his chest. The toddler was just about wiped out from his busy afternoon and starting to doze off.

They were well into the keg of beer and their second plates of food and the good-natured story swapping had started.

"So it's First Thursday," Sam began. She was sitting next to Jack and taking advantage of the crowded table to press the entire right side of her body up against his. "And Jonas had been drinking beer with whiskey shots-"

"And so had you!" Jonas interjected, defensively.

"Well, yeah," Sam admitted and everyone chuckled. "But both of us present as pretty sober even when we've been going all night, so it wasn't obvious how wasted we both were. You decide that you really are going to ask out Rush, but she's not there. So you talk Teal'c into driving you to her house and I decide to come along-"

"Teal'c," Jack interrupted, "what the hell were you thinking?"

"He intended to walk there on his own, O'Neill. I thought driving him would be a better plan to ensure his safety."

Jack gave him a skeptical look but Sam kept talking, "Well, Teal'c did try to just drive him home but Jonas figured it out and badgered him-"

"To your credit you did tell me it was a really bad idea," Jonas said.

"No one likes to be stalked, Jonas," Sam said, "Take it from me."

"You did have more than your fair share of creepy guys attracted to you," Jack observed. "I would have taken care of them for you, but you're a better shot than I am. I always figured if you wanted them gone, you'd do it yourself."

Sam looked up at him. "You would have eliminated all my stalker admirers?"

"In a cold minute," Jack said, before drinking from his red Solo cup of beer.

Sam thought about that, then smiled at him in delight before continuing, "Well, Jonas didn't listen and he gets Teal'c to drive him to this address, and he goes to stand under a window and he starts singing. So Teal'c is out of the car at this point and trying to get him to stop because we thought he was going to – you know – knock on her door and talk to her and a light comes on."

Ashlen was giggling helplessly at this point.

"It turns out we're at the wrong house! Jonas got the street numbers all mixed up."

"I had been to her house before!" Jonas said, defensively, "Remember she had that get-together for all the newbies?"

"Yes, but you didn't even notice the house looked completely different!" Sam complained.

"Well no, I didn't at the time." Jonas said with an innocent grin.

"They called the cops on him and before we can get him back in the car there's a black and white pulling up with the lights flashing. Teal'c explained the address mix up and the officers were actually pretty nice about it," Sam went on, "They said if one of us could blow a triple zero they'd let us go with a warning and of course, you know – Teal'c."

"What is a triple zero?" Ashlen interrupted.

"It's a clear blood alcohol test, proving at least one of us is stone cold sober," Sam explained. "The funniest part was when the cop tried to high five Teal'c for the test and Teal'c just left him hanging there. I think I was hustling Jonas back into the car at that point."

"So why is this the first time I'm hearing about this?" Jack asked, as the others laughed.

"Need to know, sir," Jonas said.

Jack glared. Sam told him. "It's your own fault. You taught us the importance of need to know."

Jack snorted and said, "I need more beer."

He bumped shoulders with Sam as he got up and she smiled at him fondly.

Daniel stood up, slowly, carefully cradling JD who was now completely asleep. "I'm going to go put him in his new bed. Anyone want anything from inside?"

"We need more ketchup," Cameron noted.

"Done," Daniel said.

He turned towards the sliding door back into the house but Jack intercepted him. "You got a place where I can talk to Sam in private?" He asked.

"Talk?" Daniel asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, talk, Daniel – as in share a dialogue," Jack answered, irritated.

"Okay, fine!" Daniel said, "Shh!" He rocked a little on his feet to keep JD from waking up. "Use my office. No one should be in there now."

"Thanks," Jack said, sincerely.

"Jack," Daniel said, suddenly worried, "Is something wrong?"

"No," Jack's answer was quick and honest because Daniel wouldn't believe anything else.

Daniel nodded and went into the house. Jack stood, waiting patiently until Sam felt his gaze resting on her. When she looked up he tilted his head towards the house and then vanished through the door into the house. Less than a few seconds later she came through after him.

"What?" she asked.

Jack kept his voice low because the house was full of people. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," she said, just as quietly.

Jack took her by the hand and guided her towards the stairs.

(0)


	149. Chapter 149

The downstairs of the Jacksons' house was just as crowded as the upstairs but no one seemed to notice as Sam and Jack went into Daniel's office. The door was open and the room was deserted, probably the only room in the house that was unoccupied. It had a strong aura of 'Daniel-ness' that worked as its own special security system.

Jack had never had a problem breaching Daniel's defenses, and he had permission to be here anyway. He led Sam into the room and shut the door. For a moment all he did was back her up against the wall and lean into her body space, hands on either side of her, staring down into her eyes. A soft playful smile touched her expression. He bent lower and delicately caressed her lips with his, a gentle tease that left her momentarily breathless and burning for more. She'd wanted to kiss him since he'd appeared out of nowhere.

He brushed her cheek with his, rubbed his nose lightly against hers and pressed his forehead to hers just enough to move her bangs so they tickled.

"I keep having to remind myself I can do this," Jack said.

"You mean this?" Sam asked. She put her hands on either side of his face and pulled him down.

They kissed the way people who had been drowning reached for air, as if there had never been anything so sweet, so necessary. Somehow her arms went around him, fisting in his t-shirt. Jack's hands roamed over her back and shoulders. One hand finally came to rest cradling the side of her face.

There were no words for the amount of passion, the depth of the need. When they stopped to breathe, Sam turned her cheek into his palm, eyes closed and Jack stilled, frozen in wonder.

It was Sam who spoke first. "So I'm guessing you didn't bring me down here just to make out?"

"No but it's a good enough reason all on its own, isn't it?" Jack asked, linking his fingers behind her back.

"Of course, but you know what happens when my curiosity gets piqued. So we can continue this part of the reunion at my house tonight?"

"If we're invited," Jack answered.

"Of course you are!" Sam said, startled.

"I can't assume that," he shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I just can't. It's your house."

Sam nodded, understanding. Jack had watched the progression of men who had come in and out of her life over the last ten years and he was determined not to make any of the mistakes they had about violating Sam's personal space.

"Well, you're coming to my house tonight and so is Jett - unless Jett gets invited to Rusty Davidson's like last time, to hang out with his boys."

"Jett likes that," Jack acknowledged.

"So why are we here?" Sam asked.

Jack sighed a little and backed away. They went to Daniel's desk and sat down in the only two chairs the room had.

"Is this bad?" she asked.

"From a professional point of view, no. For us, for you and me, it's going to mean back-burnering a few things."

"Uh-oh."

Jack sighed, inhaled and then spoke as if he was ripping off a Band-Aid. "The President and the IOA have finally come to a conclusion about whom they want to replace Elizabeth Weir."

"And?"

"It's you."

For a moment all Sam could do was stare at him in blank amazement. Then she finally said, "What? Me? I'm the same rank as most of the team leaders. I'm the same rank as Sheppard. How is that going to work?"

"You've been the same rank as Mitchell since you agreed to rejoin SG-1, and that seems to have worked just fine for both of you. With your experience you should have made full bird a year ago."

"I'll have to command McKay, of all people! You want to talk about men who have been sexist and condescending to me-"

"I'm pretty sure he's over that," Jack commented.

"Why? Why me? I thought you were going to push for Gerald Mallory to get Atlantis."

"The IOA-"

Sam let out a frustrated growl and got to her feet. "I thought you said they weren't going to have a say in this."

For the first time Jack looked impatient. "Let me finish!"

Chastised, Sam sat back down. "The IOA doesn't have as much to say at the moment. Not after the way they went off the rails and almost lost the Odyssey. I managed to convince Hayes that we need to put the military in command of Atlantis. I pushed for Mallory, but it seems the Air Force had other plans for him."

"What plans?" He's perfect for this."

"The SGC."

"What!"

"They want Landry to train Mallory to take over for him in six months. So that Landry can take over for me."

Jack let that sink in for a moment. Her eyes narrowed for a moment and then she sighed. "That's going to be the progression now, isn't it?"

"Probably," Jack said, "at least for the moment."

"So you're in this for at least another six months no matter what?"

"Yes, and when you take Atlantis I'm in it until you stand down. I won't let anyone else have your back. That's just not going to happen."

"When. When I take Atlantis?"

"Honey, you brought up a whole bunch of possible issues with the command but you never said no."

Sam started to protest and then stopped because he was right. There had been nothing inside of her that had balked at the command. Nothing at all. She looked at Jack and pleaded silently for him to understand.

Jack waved a hand in the air dismissively. "You're one of the most career-driven people I know. That's fine. It's one of the things I love about you. You do this – take it as an interim command while we straighten out the IOA – and you'll be able to write your own ticket afterwards."

"What about us?" she asked.

"You can't plan a wedding in the Pegasus galaxy? I can send you bridal magazines if you want."

"Be serious."

"I was!"

Sam inhaled. "You mean it?"

"You're the one who started it! On the Odyssey."

"Is this what you want? For me to take command of Atlantis?"

"Is it what I – Jack O'Neill, future retired USAF officer – want? No. I want to put in my papers tomorrow and be done with the whole thing. I want to marry you – as soon as possible, in whatever way you want. But is it what General O'Neill, stuck in the Pentagon with the issues of Wraith and Replicators and what to do about Atlantis wants? Yes. Given the short list of people they want in that command, you're the only one we all agree on. You're the only one I trust."

Sam stared with her heart beating fast. "When is all this supposed to happen?"

"I'm supposed to bring you back with me for a meeting with Hayes. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow! That's kind of quick, isn't it?"

"Atlantis is being run by a committee at the moment, so it kind of has to be."

Sam shook her head. She had been holding Jack like a secret in her heart for so long. They hadn't said anything openly. Their immediate team was still the only ones who knew about them. She had been looking forward to coming out of the shadows; for the end of an era that seemed to have lasted her entire life.

"Am I going to have a choice?"

"Do you want one?"

"Not if you need me."

"I do."

"This isn't the context in which I was hoping to hear you say that," Sam said, drily.

"Wasn't how I was hoping to say it," Jack admitted. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, folding his hands. "But I want you to know that I am proud of you. I have always been proud of you, from the beginning. I know you too well. I know that underneath the personal disappointment, you're as excited as hell."

Sam stood up, pushed him back into an upright position and sat down in his lap.

"You learn this from Mal Doran?" Jack asked.

"Maybe," she smiled.

"I notice she's in Mitchell's lap these days," Jack mused. He put his arms around her.

"So we have until tomorrow?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Jack said, "Tomorrow afternoon. Lunch meeting. Hayes likes things informal."

"So we have tonight?"

"Yeah. More barbecue, hang with the team for a while. Then probably fireworks?"

Sam's smile was slow and sultry. She leaned forward, seeking another kiss. "Oh yeah, tonight, I can promise there's going to be fireworks."

(0)


	150. Chapter 150

Sam had wandered off and was probably in the pool again, as the afternoon had become increasingly warmer. They had started a volley ball game in the deep endJack grabbed a beer from the cooler, wanting the feeling of cold glass in his hands and, spotting Daniel, he went to stand next to him, leaning on the railing of the upper deck and looking out over the party taking place in the yard.

"So Sam's going to Atlantis," Daniel said, without looking at Jack.

"Yep," Jack answered.

"Happy about that?"

"Nope."

"Has to be done?"

"Yep."

"Then she'll do it," Daniel said.

"And she will be awesome," Jack said, with a sigh. "I know."

Daniel glanced at him sideways, hesitant. But Daniel had never hesitated before poking at Jack when wiser men would have backed away slowly.

"Look, Jack. I asked you once if we go paid for what we do and you said yes. It didn't take me long after that to realize that we also pay _for_ it, every day. This seems like too much to ask this time. You going to be okay, with her gone?"

Jack's jaw rippled for a moment. Not in irritation at the question, not after all the time he and Daniel had been the most unlikely of friends. He still just hated talking. On the other hand he should probably vent to someone before he vented at Sam.

"I don't know if I can hack the political crap without her."

Daniel nodded and waited because Jack always needed a moment to admit that he had just said something important. If Daniel jumped on an answer too fast Jack would shut him down with a series of snide comments and they'd be shouting at each other. He kept his response calm and level, his tone matter-of-fact. "She wasn't sure she could hack it off world without you. I'm not sure she ever stopped looking for you, every time. I'm not sure any of us ever did. Sometimes we'd look up and see Cam and I know we all seemed kind of surprised that it wasn't you standing there and I know he knew it. But Sam's strong and so are you. You've both been hacking crap for two years. You'll stay in DC because she needs you to. She's going to Atlantis mostly because you need her to. I don't think I've ever seen two people who loved each other the way you do and spend so much time having to put everything and everyone ahead of your own desires."

Jack stared straight ahead and didn't say anything for a while. "Not entirely ahead of all our desires. Sam's career is already pretty set. If she does this successfully - and she will – together we can write whatever ticket she wants. Her career is important to her. I won't ask her to put it on hold or side rail it for me."

"And you've got your own plans for the SGC," Daniel surmised, "In spite of your claim that it's all going to be peaceful exploration and rainbows now. You've got Sam now and you know it. You'll always have Sam. The only thing you still need is the white picket fence and the dog."

A smile pulled at Jack's mouth. "Jett wants a dog," he said, "I'm not sure how Sam feels about one."

"If Jett wants it, she'll be okay with it," Daniel guessed. "She's been waiting for you to get one. You did once tell Cassie every Earth kid has to have a dog."

They were silent for a long time and then Jack said, "What do _you_ want, Daniel? While I'm still in a position to make sure you get it."

Jack knew Daniel wouldn't brush it off, wouldn't claim he didn't want anything. He knew Jack wouldn't let him for one thing. Daniel had earned whatever he said next.

"I want three months off," he said, "to be with my family. I want to take them to the Caribbean beach house after Katie is born and not be disturbed for all that time. When we get back I want to head the team looking at the Asgard data base and I want to hand pick that team. When the Odyssey is back up and running and has a moment, I want to go to Heliopolis to see what survived."

Jack turned to look at him. "You've thought about this."

Daniel drank from the cup in hand, which Jack suspected was lemonade. Daniel was staying stone cold sober in the event that Jillian suddenly needed him. "Yeah, I have."

Jack shrugged. "It's not too far off from what they'll want you to do anyway. Shouldn't be a problem, except for the beach house thing. I don't really have a say in who gets to use Jillian's family's beach house."

Daniel huffed out a small laugh. "No. I already checked with her dad and he says it's available to us for however long we need it."

Jack nodded and they stood almost shoulder to shoulder for a while and then Jack asked, "You got a football around here? Bat and ball?"

"There's a great big bag of sporting equipment in the garage," Daniel answered, sounding bemused and a little awed, "Jillian picked it up just for these little get-togethers. There's even a basketball hoop on wheels we can roll out into the driveway, so Uncle Cam can teach the kids how to play."

Jack's eyebrows went up because it would be the last thing he'd expect to find in the Jackson's garage. But Daniel was good at surprising him. He'd always been able to do that. It was good, Jack thought, after ten years, some things remained the same.

"Mind if I drag it out?"

"No, "Daniel said. Tilting his cup back he drained it and then tossed into the nearest garbage can. "I'll help you."

"We need to take the long way through your downstairs," Jack said, as they headed into the house.

"Why?"

"Because it's 3 o'clock on a beautiful afternoon and my son has been in front of video games for long enough," Jack said. "He's already way over the daily limit."

"Ah," Daniel said, "Not a part of fatherhood I've had to worry about yet."

"You have so much to look forward to," Jack said, drily.

But Daniel only smiled, with that shy, head-duck that had become so familiar in the first few years of their friendship and had rarely been seen since, "Yeah," he said, "I think I do. I'm not worried about it at any rate. I'll have you if I need advice."

Jack snorted, "Advice you won't take," he said, certainly.

But Daniel shrugged. "You never know," he said.

(0)

**A/N; If you are one of my faithful and dearly held readers and you have been with me this far in Moonlight and Steel, I want to tell you how much I appreciate each and every one of you. Your kind words and enthusiasm and encouragement are what have kept me going this long. I now that not all of you agree with every single thing I have ever imagined for this version of Jack and Sam, but your continued support has been a true blessing for me. I am writing this because I once again got one of those irritating 'guest' reviews that just make my jaw drop. I will never understand the sheer hubris of some fan fiction readers and their over blown sense of entitlement. So to all of you who send me such wonderful reviews and private messages - thank you. Thank you for understanding that I do this for free, on my own time and I offer it as it. It's my story, my way and having loyal readers makes up for the ones who whine like big babies because the plot doesn't go exactly the way they want it. Thank you for reminding me that most fan fiction readers rock.**


	151. Chapter 151

**A/N: Thank you again to the readers who are willing to wait and let me tell this story the way it is in my head. This seems like an ending but I assure you it isn't. There is a whole lot ahead for this Sam and Jack.**

**(0)**

Sam closed the last of the Eyes-Only files she had been given and sighed. Atlantis was going to be a much bigger challenge than she'd originally thought; and she had already gone toe-to-toe with the IOA over rescuing Elizabeth Weir. Their answer was no, a firm no with the President's backing and no argument from Jack or from her had made a difference.

She was sitting on the deck of the house she had purchased after rejoining SG1, stretched out on a chaise lounge and with a box of files next to her, all bound neatly in dark blue with gold etching. She dropped the latest file into the box and stared out at the sun, slowly drifting down towards the tops of the pine trees.

Jack came out of the house, carrying a beer and a glass of iced tea. He gave her the tea and she smiled her thanks as he pulled the other chaise over next to her and sat down, straddling it first. Sam glanced at him and watched from the corners of her eyes. Her pulse raced a little, but it was so nice out here on the deck, in the setting sun, the summer evening warm around them. They had time before they had to go inside. But once they were there…..

Her thoughts warmed her and caused a little shiver of anticipation at the same time.

"All caught up?" He asked.

Sam sighed and waved a hand at the box in an unintentionally graceful gesture. "How did you ever deal with all this the last two years?"

"I had you," he answered.

It made her smile and reach across the distance between them for his hand. He held hers for a moment and then used it to pull her up from her seat and over to him. He opened his legs again so that she could sit between them, her back against his chest. She settled back with a contented sigh.

"You'll always have me," she said. There was a pause, a stiffening of his spine, a slight intake of his breathing that made her turn her head to look at him. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Jack said, quickly, "and I know we've been doing a lot of unofficial bantering about planning a wedding, but I was wondering-" He broke off and leaned forward, digging something out of his jeans pocket. He paused again and then brought his hand around in front of her. He was holding a ring – a swirl of twisting diamonds coming together around a blue tanzanite as startling as her eyes. "I was wondering if you'd like to make it official."

Sam couldn't breathe for a moment and when she did it came out in a rush. Shaking all she could do was lift her left hand and offer it to him. He slipped the ring on her third finger and just held her hand for a moment.

"That a yes?" He asked.

"Yes!" She blurted. "Jack! Can we really do this?"

He ignored the question. "It's your birthstone, not a diamond. Is that all right? I thought that way you could wear it and no one would ask questions you couldn't answer; and I looked at diamonds. I did! But it just didn't seem like _you._ This was unique, one of a kind, like you; and yes, we can be engaged and no one outside of our friends needs to know. We can make plans and when you get back from Atlantis we can carry out those plans. Okay?"

The setting sun broke passed a cluster of pine branches and shone down on them. Sam felt as if it was shining straight into her heart. She twisted around, leaning back into the strength of his arms.

"Oh, it's way more than okay," she said, reaching up to touch the line of his jaw. "It's damned near perfect."

Jack bent forward, his mouth inviting hers. Desire surged, overwhelmingly. Just before they kissed he said, "And it's about damned time."

(0)


	152. Chapter 152

**This is another cross-posted chapter from Sunshine and Shadow. In that story, Jillian's family has a beach house in the Caribbean, on the island of St. John. In this chapter she and Daniel have invited both teams to celebrate their victories over the Replicators, the Ori and the Goa'uld by spending a week with them at the house.**

**(0)**

They arrived en masse, either by the conventional means of flying to St. Thomas and then taking a ferry to St. John and renting a car, or by Asgard beam in the case of Sam and Jack and Jett. But they all got there within hours of each other, fluttering in like snowflakes until there was a virtual blizzard of them, whirling into the house and taking up all the space, laughing and hugging like they had not seen each other in years.

Sam and Jack and Jett were first, beaming onto the porch with suitcases and duffle bags and coming through the front door with no more warning than Jack yelling, "Daniel!"

He was answered by a shriek of joy from JD as he ran towards them crying, "Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack, Uncle Jack!" and "SAM!" as he leapt into Jack's embrace. He stayed there for a moment, hugging Jack before reaching for Sam with both arms and lunging towards her with such force Jack almost dropped him before Sam could catch him.

Daniel just rolled his eyes as he hugged all of them in greeting, lifting Jett off the ground and complaining about how tall Jett had gotten in the few months since they had seen him last. Quietly to Jack he asked, "You got an answer about what you want to do about bedrooms yet? We've got eight and the day bed in the study, plus the sofa bed in the downstairs rec room—"

"Hold off on that for now, okay?" Jack cut him off just as quietly.

"Okay," Daniel shrugged as he tried to extract JD from Sam.

Sam, Jack and Jett were followed a few hours later by Scott and Annie with Rusty and Diane and just their two youngest boys – Kevin and Ryan – since the oldest had just started college and couldn't come until the weekend. Mallory and Liz showed up in the next batch, with their granddaughters, Megan and Liza, and the energy in the place shot up 110%, fueled by an age range of 8 to 12.

Jillian's dad arrived next with Cameron, Vala, and Teal'c, having been lucky enough to catch the last ferry from St. Thomas for the day, and capping off JD's joy. The excited little boy didn't know whether to run to his grandpa or to Vala first, but he got in hugs for Teal'c and Cameron in the midst of his confusion.

The kids, of course, had immediately wanted to go in the pool.

"Yeah, that's fine," Daniel said, "You're all getting the two downstairs bedrooms so go figure out which one is girls and which one is boys. They're the same, two sets of bunk beds in both. So it doesn't matter. The beach is fine too as long as you stay where you can see the house. None of you go in the ocean without an adult. Is that clear?"

Four of the kids all nodded but Jett looked at Jack. "Dad," he said.

"Nope," Jack said, shaking his head, ending the discussion before it started. "Backing Daniel on this one, and don't bother looking at Sam."

Jett looked at her anyway, since he was already in the process of doing just that when he was warned against it. She gave him a little shrug and a sympathetic grin as she shook her head.

"Ocean," she said, emphatically, "Big, deep, sharks, barracuda. Nope. Wait for the adults."

"Vala and I will come out in a little bit, Jett," Cameron said, "This Kansas boy can't get enough of the ocean if there's one around."

Jett made a face of pure frustration but gave up quickly enough, "Thanks, Cam," he said, and then took off down the stairs after the others.

"Wow," Daniel said, with a smug grin. "Questioning authority. I wonder where he got that?"

"Shut up, Daniel," Jack said.

Scotty had wandered out onto the deck and let out a slow whistle. "This is amazing. Oh my god, Jillian. Is that your sailboat?"

Jillian went out onto the deck with him. "Yep. That's the North Wind. I thought you might like it. Want to take it out?"

"More than I want my next meal," Scott said, sincerely, gazing in rapt awe at the graceful sloop riding a gentle wind-blown surf against the dock.

"Good," Jillian answered, "We're going to take it out on a trip to St. Thomas to get in supplies for all of you tomorrow. There's a motorboat too, but Dad will probably take that and whoever wants to go along with him."

"Oh, that would be fantastic. Do you mean it?"

"Sure," Daniel said, as he joined them. "Jillian would never tease you about something as cool as that sailboat. I'll go along but I'm sure you can handle that boat better than I can."

"Oh I can't wait," Scott said, on the verge of hyperventilating.

At that point everyone had come out onto the deck, gazing around in appreciation of the natural beauty and the way the house so effortlessly complimented it. The kids had all found the pool by that time and the tropical air was filled the scent of flowers and the sound of their laughter and splashing.

Annie went and leaned on the railing, gazing out at the ocean. Scott went to stand beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"It's so beautiful here, Jillian," she said, with a dreamy sigh. "I didn't think anything could be as lovely as Maui but this is incredible. No wonder you wanted to honeymoon here."

"My family was very lucky to own the home and the land before the island became a National Park," Jillian said, "It's kept out the developers. I remember coming here as a child. Remember, Dad? When we would come with Mom? And sometimes Uncle Randal and Aunt Jen and Cheryl would join us, and Great-Uncle Remy and Great-Aunt Maggie would come with their kids and grandkids?"

Alexander North walked over to stand next to her while she was talking. He was holding his granddaughter as if he was never going to let her go, rocking her in his arms as she fell asleep to the sound of laughter and the ocean.

"I remember," he said, sounding wistful. "I haven't been in here in ages. I had forgotten how peaceful it is."

Jillian slipped her arm through his and hugged it. "We'll come more often now," she promised. "We'll make sure JD and Katie have happy memories of this house." Then she looked around at everyone, making sure she gave everyone a moment of eye contact so that they would know how sincere she was. "In fact, I want us all to start coming here more often. If you want to come and use it, just ask; and I want to make sure that this isn't the last time we all gather here. This place is for family and you are all my family now."

(0)

They cooked fish and steaks and various fruits and vegetables on skewers on the outside grill, with tiki torches burning and the setting sun gradually changing the colors of the sky. Conversation was random, ranging from speculation about the name of the new 304 that was being built to cheesecake (a subject that apparently made Cameron wax poetic about one of his mama's recipes). They were starting on the tray of desserts when Jack suddenly asked for everyone's attention.

"I have an announcement," he said, putting his hands on both of his now brand-new knees. Because he was the General, everyone stopped talking and looked at him anxiously. "I just want to let everyone know that this morning before we beamed here, I put in my retirement papers." There were exclamations of surprise, approval and congratulations as Jack stood up, more smoothly than anyone of them had seen him in years. He walked over to where Samantha was standing by the railing. "It means," he went on, "that I can go to more of my son's hockey games, and I can go fishing and I'd really like to buy a sailboat. But it also means that I – that we – can do this."

Jack reached out slowly and put both hands on either side of her head, not touching but hovering close. He looked at her with a mixture of question and adoration. Sam's eyes got wide with a brief flicker of astonishment and then slid shut as Jack's hands touched, cradled and he leaned in. Jack's mouth touched hers, lips brushed. They breathed, brushed lips again, closed their eyes, and softly kissed.

Everyone fell silent, as if they were witnessing something sacred. Sam's lips parted. Jack held there, not pushing. Sam let out a breath she'd held for a decade and pressed forward to claim Jack's mouth, fill it. For a few seconds there was nothing but kiss - warm lips, wet tongue, hungry possessiveness, stunned relief, melting tenderness.

The silence ended abruptly. From somewhere off to the left they heard a sharp, victorious, "I knew it!" from Vala and an indulgent, affectionate rumble from Teal'c. Someone, probably Rusty, let out a long finger-whistle of appreciation.

From the right they heard "Well, hell, in that case," from Mitchell, and a shocked little shriek from Vala that ended in the soft smack of a kiss and faded into a hum of laughing surrender. Well, okay, Vala was a civilian and Cam's dream band had broken up again. So there really wasn't any reason for them to hide their feelings any longer.

They could hear Daniel laughing amid the scattered round of applause that erupted, and Jett groaning, "Da-ad!" as if he was going to die of embarrassment. The younger girls were giggling and Rusty's sons were groaning.

Jack leaned back to look into Sam's eyes. He was aware of the assorted couples around them breaking off to hug and kiss and then hold each other as they looked at Jack and Sam, as if their love and happiness had somehow spilled over onto everyone. It was all cute and sweet and as endearing as hell, but it was the last thing Jack cared about at the moment. He kept looking at Sam. Her expression broke into a brilliant smile, so wide and bright it filled Jack's field of vision and lit the dusky sky. Jack smiled too, slowly at first but then he couldn't stop it. His smile grew until it matched hers. Sam was struggling, stunned to be able to express this openly, trying hard to dial it down and failing pathetically. She was dazzled and it was beautiful. For Jack, being what dazzled Samantha Carter was the headiest feeling in the galaxy. Jack knew that he was probably the image of goofy, unbound adoration - his expression completely ungoverned, and for the first time in years, that was completely all right.

Jack stood back and held her at arm's length for a moment, giving her a meaningful look. He lifted her right hand and took the shining blue ring off her finger. As he transferred it to the ring finger of her left hand he said, "Marry me."

Her laughing answer was almost drowned out by the new burst of cheering. "Didn't we already have this conversation?" Sam said.

"Yeah, privately," Jack said, "But this is front of witnesses. So you can't back out."

"I'd never back out," Sam said, as she slipped her arms around his neck. She looked up at him with the calm, implacable, understated authority he knew she was going to be taking to Atlantis with her. "No more 'someday'. No more 'maybe next weekend,' 'maybe next week,' 'maybe next year.' No more delays, no more excuses, no more opportunity for the next thing to come along and mess this up, Jack. Promise me?"

"Promise," Jack said.

He put his arms around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. His papers were still waiting for approval and Sam had a stint in Atlantis to complete. But there was no reason for them to deny his retirement and he could always join her there if need be. Jett would jump at the chance to live in another galaxy for a short time.

His friends – his family, as Jillian had so rightly named them all – were all hugging each other and grinning back at them. Jack remembered Sam telling him that she had given up the word impossible a long time ago. So now, Jack thought, maybe happily ever after wasn't going to be impossible after all.

(0)


	153. Chapter 153

**More light fluff, because writing Jack and kids is almost irresistible.**

**(0)**

The house was empty except for Jack, Sam, Jillian, Daniel, Katie and JD. Everyone else was off on one island jaunt or the other. Some were out in the sailboat because Scotty was head-over-heels in love with the thing. Some had gone for a drive around the island to check out Trunk Bay and spend the day on the beach, taking the older kids with them.

They were passing a lazy afternoon in the main room, with Sam stretched out on the couch, Jillian quietly rocking Katie on the glider and Daniel and Jack lying on the floor building Duplos with JD.

Jack had assembled a passable airplane and JD was flying it around the room.

"Build something else, Uncle Jack," he said, climbing over Daniel.

"Like what?" Jack asked.

JD plopped down in front of him and said, "Can you build a robot?"

"Oh I can build an amazing robot. What kind do you want?"

"A super robot," JD said, spreading his arms wide. "So big its head is up in the sky!"

"Well what does one look like?" Jack asked.

"Like the ones that were at the house last night," JD answered.

At that point Sam sat up and Jillian stopped rocking; because in their world there was a very real possibility that somehow robots had been at the beach house the night before.

"JD," Daniel said, very calmly, as if he was trying not to scare him, "how many robots were at the house last night?"

"Five," JD said, holding up three fingers.

"Five," Jack repeated, holding up all the fingers of his right hand.

"No, five," JD insisted, going to Jack and pushing down his thumb and little finger. He nodded with satisfaction at the resulting three fingers and said, "Five. Like that."

Jack looked past JD at Daniel and said, succinctly, "Gets his math skills from his father, I see."

"Shut up, Jack," Daniel said.

"Daniel," Jillian said, warningly, with a indicative look at her son. JD picked up nearly everything he heard—something he _did_ get from his father. He gave her an apologetic look in return and then distracted their son. "JD, when did the robots get here? Where was I?"

"You were sleeping," JD said. He put his fingers on his eyelids and pulled them down. "Like this. You and mommy. You were sleeping." He opened his eyes again looked expectantly at Daniel.

"We were sleeping?" Daniel repeated.

"Yes," JD nodded and then put his fingers on his eyes again, holding them closed. "Like this."

JD," Jack said, and then waited for him to take his fingers away and open his eyes, and though it hardly mattered – the beach house was often open to the cool night air in any number of ways – he asked, "How did they get in."

"They shrink down really, really tiny," JD said, emphasizing the words with his sweet, childish diction.

Jack held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger almost touching. "Like this?" he asked.

JD nodded excitedly, "Yes, like that! Then they grow up really big again!"

Daniel looked at Jack again but Jack had put his head down, biting his lip to keep from laughing. The odds of both Daniel and Jillian, as well as the other residents, sleeping through five robots roaming the beach house was pretty much nil.

"So what did the robots do?" Jack asked, when he was able to look up again.

"They came in the house and looked through the refrigerator. Then they flew around a little bit. Like this," JD held out his arms and ran around the room for a minute before jumping over Jack and sitting down.

"That doesn't sound so bad," Jack said. "Did they do anything else?"

"They tried to eat Katie!" JD said, urgently.

"Really?"

"Yes," he nodded for emphasis and then stood up and put his hand out, palm vertical, "but I said, 'No robots!' and they stopped."

Sam exchanged a look with Jillian, biting her lip as she tried not to laugh. Jillian was watching and listening with a kind of hopeless affection in her eyes.

"Can you build one for me that looks like them?" Jack asked.

"No,"JD said, speaking with grave certainty and shaking his head. "It would scare Katie."

Daniel covered a laugh with a cough.

"So they were big?" Jack asked.

"Some of them, two of them, like way up in the sky big; but the rest were little," JD cupped his hands together, "Like this little, small enough to fit in here."

"Did the little ones try to eat Katie?" Jack asked.

"No the big one did!" JD's eyes were wide as he said it. "But I said, 'No, robots,' so they didn't."

"Are you sure you can't build one that looks like they did?" Jack asked.

JD sighed heavily and then held up his hand in Katie's direction, "Don't look, Katie. Mommy, don't let Katie look. Okay?"

"I won't, honey," Jillian answered, trying not to grin. She shifted Katie around and threw a blanket over her, shrugging at Daniel, who was openly grinning. It wouldn't hurt to humor him and see if Katie was hungry all at the same time.

Moments later, with Jack's help and advice, JD had constructed a large robot that, according to him, could shoot lasers and walk through walls.

"JD," Daniel said, "could you have been dreaming, maybe?"

The little boy frowned, "I don't think so. Why would I want a robot to eat Katie?"

"But you didn't want the robot to eat, Katie," Jack reminded him. "You saved Katie from the robot."

"Does that mean I am like a superhero? Like Batman?"

Jack laughed, picked JD up with both hands on his waist and then rolled over, holding him up as if he was flying. "More like Superman!" he said.

JD laughed. "Daddy, I am Superman!"

"You sure are, Sonshine," Daniel said.

"Uncle Jack, can we go swimming?" JD asked, as Jack set him back on the floor.

"I don't see why not," Jack said. "But ask your dad first."

"Can I, Daddy?" JD asked, and then added belatedly, "Please?"

"I don't see why not, but you have to pick up the Duplos and put them away first."

He looked like he was going to refuse, getting a stubborn set to his jaw and a look in his eye that Jack found way too familiar.

"JD," Jillian said, "What will happen if Daddy and I put them away?"

His frown increased to serious unhappiness. "You'll put them way up in the closet," he said.

"That's right. So it's your choice. But I bet you can't pick up more than Uncle Jack," Daniel said.

"Oh it's _on,_" Jack said, scrambling to grab Duplos.

Less than five minutes later, with the Duplos all safely stored back in the bucket, Jack stood up – more smoothly than he had in years, thanks to two successful knee surgeries – scooping JD up off the floor as he did. He tossed him in the air just to listen to his delighted shriek and then set him on his feet. "Go get your bathing suit," he said and then he looked at Sam. "Go for a swim?"

"I'd love to," Sam answered, standing, smiling as she went to Jack and slipped an arm around his waist.

(0)


	154. Chapter 154

**This will start wrapping up this interlude for Moonlight and Steel and then I have to think seriously about Sam's time in Atlantis.**

**(0)**

Dusk was setting once again on the island as Daniel read JD one more Piper book (Piper Saves the Day, JD's absolute favorite.) Jillian rocked Katie in the chair by the open door, letting the tropical breeze drift gently past them.

"One more time, Daddy?" JD asked, around a wide yawn, rubbing his eyes.

"Nope," Daniel answered, affectionately. "Time for bed."

Daniel couldn't even fathom how JD was still awake. Jillian had suggested that it was probably the two hour nap he'd had earlier that afternoon. But still, between the other kids and Jack and Cameron and Vala, swimming, running, playing nonstop all afternoon and passed dinner, JD really should have been a whole lot more willing to close his eyes.

After Daniel politely and firmly declined to read to him anymore, JD gave a token protest. But he was finally falling asleep when his father picked him up and snuggled down instantly when he was tucked in. Daniel paused, trying to make sure that he was truly asleep. He was pretty convinced but when he started to move away JD said,

"Daddy?"

"What, Sonshine?"

"Can we get a dog?"

Daniel was too startled to answer right away. He looked across the short distance separating him from Jillian, trying to gauge her reaction. Jillian's lips parted in surprise and she stared back helplessly.

A decade of facing down Goa'uld, Replicators, Priors and Ori had not prepared either of them for the questions their son could ask.

"Ummm," Daniel hedged, "Let's talk about that with mommy and Katie in the morning, okay?

"Katie doesn't talk. She's a baby," JD murmured.

Daniel laughed softly and leaned over to kiss his forehead. "Well, we'll try to get her opinion anyway. Go to sleep, Sonshine."

He tucked the covers in around JD and then looked at Jillian again.

"She asleep?"

"Almost," she answered, rising. Carefully she handed Katie to Daniel, who put his daughter over his shoulder and patted her softly when she made a low mewling noise of displeasure. "Why don't you put her down for the night so I can go get a shower? I think Katie spit up on me at least a dozen times today."

"Sure," Daniel said, softly because he was trying not to disturb the baby. "Then how about we go take a walk. Everyone is leaving the day after tomorrow. This is the last night we'll have babysitters. I'll ask Sam and Jack."

"If you think they won't mind."

"No, I'm sure they won't. We shouldn't be gone long anyway; and the kids are asleep."

For a moment they just stood and stared at each other. Little sparks leapt between them, fired the air, tempered only by the presence of their children. Jillian leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips and he returned it, seized by the mad desire to pull her into his arms and kiss her more soundly.

Jillian blushed and glanced away. Daniel chuckled softly. He reached over and tucked a piece of auburn hair behind her ear. His eyes were unusually calm and bright.

"What do you say?" He asked.

"Sounds great," she answered.

(0)

Daniel found Jack and Sam downstairs in the rec room. Jack was stretched out on the couch with his feet on the coffee table. Sam was playing foos-hockey with Jett, loudly and with a lot of taunting and laughter, sounding more like siblings at the moment. Daniel dropped down on the couch beside Jack and leaned back with a sigh.

"Kids asleep?" Jack asked.

"Yes, both of them," Daniel answered. "Jill's getting a shower."

Sam gave a sudden loud groan and Jett let out a cheer over at the game table. Then they both grinned at each like idiots and Sam said, "Okay best four out of seven," and Jett answered, "You're on!"

Jack snorted and shook his head in exasperated affection. "That's gotta end eventually," he called to them.

"Eventually," Sam agreed, giving him a saucy smile.

Jack laughed again. Sam was good at getting him to do that – laugh. Daniel had noticed that recently. It sounded good and it felt good, knowing that there were enough pieces of Jack O'Neill put back together to once again summon laughter.

"You're not getting in on that action?" Daniel asked.

Jack waved a dismissive hand. "He wore me out before she came downstairs. She can take him for a while. She's better with him than I am most days anyway."

Daniel ducked his head and Jack almost winced, because the bastard only did that when he was about to say something to provoke someone; in this case that someone was going to be him.

"And yet you're sending her to another galaxy," Daniel said.

"Damn it, Daniel," Jack muttered.

"Aren't you?"

"No, _I'm _not," Jack answered.

"You're trying to tell me you weren't at those meetings" Daniel said, accusingly.

"No," Jack returned, sounding grumpy and tired suddenly. "I was there. The problem was that there was nothing to argue about. She _is_ the best choice at the moment – the compromise between military and civilian."

"How is Sam a compromise? She's as military as…. As… As _you_ are."

"She's also a scientist," Jack said, "and a genius."

"So is McKay."

Jack turned to give Daniel an incredulous look. "Are you suggesting we put Rodney McKay in charge of Atlantis?"

"Only if we want to lose half our allies," Daniel returned, "The guy's people skills can be… lacking."

"Then what are you saying? Exactly."

"That Atlantis needs a diplomat, not a scientist or a soldier."

"They had that and were never happy."

"Atlantis or the IOA?"

"The IOA."

"Can't argue that."

"No you can't."

They fell silent, though Jack was still brooding, hoping Daniel was done.

"I just don't know how you can let her go."

So, _of course, _Daniel wasn't done. Jack ground his teeth, glanced at Sam and Jett but found them still loudly engaged in foos-combat.

"I'm not _letting_ her go, Daniel. She's a free agent, an adult. She could have declined this but didn't."

"You're going to miss her."

Jack lost his patience. Under his breath he snapped, "_Yes,_ I am going to miss her." Not that anything changed as far as that was concerned. He missed her almost constantly. "_Yes_, I know how long we waited to be together. Yes, I plan to go see her and yes, I will be taking Jett with me when I do. _Christ_, Daniel, you have some salt around here you could use to make all this hurt any more than it does?"

Daniel held his hands up. "Okay, sorry. Should have realized."

"Yeah, you should have," Jack said, irritated. He fell silent when Sam looked over at them, eyebrows raised.

Both men forced smiles and waved at her. It was obvious they were in the middle of one of their own special conversations. She shook her head at them and clearly decided not to wade into the middle of it, especially not in front of Jett. She went back to concentrating on the game.

Daniel stood up. "Look, what I really came down here for was to ask if you'd keep an eye on the kids so Jillian and I can go for a walk. They shouldn't wake up at all, either of them. You don't have to…."

Jack waved his hand dismissively. "Go. You got a monitor or something, or should we go upstairs?"

Daniel gestured to a box on the shelf. "It's right there. I can turn it on."

"Yeah, go. We'll be fine."

"Thanks, Jack." Daniel crossed the room, switched on the monitor and then started for the stairs. He paused and added, quietly. "I meant it when I said I was sorry. I know how hard it's going to be when she leaves."

"I know you did," Jack told him.

Daniel left, taking the stairs two at a time.

"What was that about?" Sam asked.

"We're watching the kids while he and Jillian take a walk."

"No, what is he apologizing for?"

"For being a general pain in the ass and sticking his nose in where it isn't wanted."

Sam laughed a little. "That's just Daniel being Daniel isn't it?" She threw her hands in the air and surrendered the game to Jett. "Okay, kiddo, let's call it a day at three games apiece?"

"Yeah, fair," Jett said. He turned to Jack, "Can I go find the other kids?"

Jack looked at his son and wondered when Jett had gotten so tall. There was very little of the little boy who had lived on Edora left in the lanky, wild-haired pre-teen standing in front of him.

Jack jerked a thumb at the door. "Yep," he said.

"Thanks, Dad!"

As Jett ran out the door onto the lower deck, Sam dropped down on the couch beside Jack.

"So, what do we do now?" She asked.

Jack put an arm around her, pulled her close. He kept his voice light. "Well we're babysitting."

"Right?"

"So in the time honored tradition of babysitting we're going to sit on the couch and make out."

"Make out?" She laughed, but they were already leaning together, being pulled like two magnets.

"Serious making out," Jack answered, lips brushing hers.

"Oh _serious_ mak-" She was cut off when he sealed his mouth over hers and, yeah, he was right.

It was going to be very serious making out.

(0)


	155. Chapter 155

**This is fluff to satisfy the utterly romantic mood I am currently enjoying. I repeat, fluff, no plot, nothing but peace and quiet and love. Happy Holidays Sam and Jack shippers.**

**(0)**

After a short time, when other people started drifting into the rec room and someone put a movie in to watch on the big screen, Jack and Sam quietly slipped out the door and down the deck.

They went into the master bedroom to check on the kids and found them both sleeping. Tiptoeing out, Jack left the door open a crack so they could hear if either of them woke up and then they managed to climb – with considerable whispered cursing and a few helpless giggles – into the double hammock on the deck outside the door. They got settled with Jack lying on his back and Sam snugged up against him on her side, her arm draped over his chest and his arm around her shoulders, the hammock gently swaying, and it felt like _finally_ in so many ways.

Sam lifted her face to invite a kiss, wanting the comfort of his touch as much as she was willing to offer the comfort of her own – on this last night they would spend together on Earth.

The contact of their lips was sweet and soft with a touch of bitter regret. Jack leaned back first.

"I love you," he said.

Sam smiled gently. For a man not given to long and eloquent speeches it was the highest of compliments; and completely unnecessary considering that every glance and every movement he had made for ten years had shown her the truth of it. Right then, his eyes were just a bit dazed and his expression was as bemused and sincere as she had ever seen it.

"I know," she assured him, "I love you too."

She sighed and put her head in the hollow below his shoulder, where it always fit perfectly and wondered when they would both be ready to reach for _always_ instead of _just right now._

She wondered when the Universe would be ready to let them have forever. They didn't seem to love in quick bursts of sudden passion. They loved by being willing to keep committing, over and over, in spite of separations, in spite of odds stacked against them. They continued to make the _choice _to be together, no matter what obstacles stood in their way.

But she didn't voice those thoughts. Instead she said, "I'm really glad you took Jett out of school and brought him here. I know you didn't want to; and on top of that he's missing hockey practice. But I really love getting this time with him before I leave."

Jack answered in a casual tone, "Missing practice won't hurt him. He's got a talent for it, good hand-eye coordination, quick reflexes."

"Yeah," she said, smirking a little. "Wonder where he got those?"

His mouth softened into a grin that warmed her soul and love coursed through her veins because he never smiled enough. Stroking his thumb over the skin of her arm he said, "Missing school… Well, he'll catch up."

They fell silent for a while, still rocking gently in the hammock. Stars appeared as the sky darkened. Sam watched them one at a time at first and then they came in bunches. Jack had closed his eyes and she could tell he was starting to doze off.

Footsteps on the deck brought him alert once again however. Footsteps he'd recognize anywhere because it was Jett.

"There you are!" The boy said, "I looked everywhere."

"Well clearly you didn't," Jack answered, lifting his head slightly. He was about to say more when Jett launched himself up and landed on top of them, almost tilting the hammock beyond saving. Jett landed mostly on top of Jack, giggling while Jack sputtered. "Jett! Stay still! Ouch! Get your knee out of my kidneys please? Come on, settle down."

Jett subsided finally, still mostly on top of Jack. The hammock still rocked precariously and Sam clung tighter to Jack, muffling a laugh in his shirt.

"Can we go swimming?" Jett asked.

"No, we cannot go swimming," Jack answered, shaking his head, though his tone was more exasperated affection than anything else.

"Aww, why not?" Jett asked.

"Well, because for one thing, it's time for you to go to bed."

"Dad!"

"He's right, Jett. It's getting late and we have to leave early tomorrow," Sam said, gently.

Jett shifted around until he was next to Jack and not on him. "Can we stay here and talk about the stars?"

"Amazing how you suddenly find the stars so fascinating right _after _I tell you to go to bed," Jack observed.

"Aw, come on," Jett said, turning over on his back. The hammock swayed dangerously again and Sam let out a little shriek that Jack found adorable because, really, the woman had faced down much worse.

"Jett!" Jack admonished.

The boy pointed. "Look! That's the big dipper."

"You've been able to recognize that one for two years," Jack pointed out.

"Jett," Sam said, "Do you see that bright star just above the horizon?"

"That one?" It took Jett a few tries but when Sam was sure he was looking at the proper star she guided him through the rest of the kite shaped constellation.

"What is it?" Jett asked.

"That's Aquila, the Eagle. The bright star is Altair, the eleventh brightest star in the sky," Jack said, "I can tell you some astronomy facts about it but if you want the mythology you'll have to ask Daniel."

"That's cool," Jett said, for once still and sober, contemplating the sky.

Jack glanced down at Sam, who was staring across at Jett fondly. He thought about chasing his son to bed again but, A: He wasn't sure that Jett could get out of the hammock without actually dumping them all on their butts; and B: From the look on Sam's face she really wanted some more time with Jett. He settled down again and closed his eyes, content to listen to them talk.

"What else can we see?" Jett asked.

"All right, bright stars down to the left of Altair?"

"Uh-huh."

"That Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus. So we're looking for a big cross here. Are you ready?"

"Yeah."

"Down on an angle to the right, count four bright stars…"

(0)


	156. Chapter 156

They had delayed the inevitable for as long as possible. Jack had already signaled the Apollo to beam up their luggage because he and Sam wanted to say goodbye in private. With that as their goal they left the house and walked as far down the dock as possible. Sam was calm, since she had spent a lot of the previous night crying quietly in Jack's arms and trying to pretend that she wasn't. She had managed not to cry when she hugged Jett goodbye and placed a kiss on his unruly mop of hair, telling him how much she would miss him and to be careful playing hockey. At least, the tears that had pricked her eyes had not fallen and she didn't think he had seen the way she was biting her lip and swallowing hard as she watched him run off to play with the other kids one more time before he had to leave with Jack.

"I'll take care of him," Jack promised.

"I know you will," she answered. Then she slipped her arm around his and clasped his hand. Very softly she said, "Love shouldn't hurt this much."

He didn't answer. But that was Jack. There wasn't a painless way to do this, to say goodbye to someone he loved with so much intensity.

It would have been easier to just beam out first thing in the morning and not linger past breakfast. But the pain of all those last moments was less important than spending every possible one them together. Every moment now was precious. They had both thought they understood the depth of how much they loved each other when Jack had gone to Washington. But this seemed like so much….. more.

They walked to the end of the dock and turned to face each other, hands joined.

"So," Jack said.

Sam drew in a long breath, even though it made her already breaking heart ache even more. "So," she replied.

They just stood there and gazed helplessly for a while until Jack said, "C'mere," and pulled her into his arms.

Sam locked hers around him and fit her face into his shoulder and hung on as if she would never let go. There was now only this moment, this weird suspension of movement, caught between _I love you_ and _goodbye_.

"You're going to do great," he said.

"I won't let you down."

"I never thought you might."

"I'm going to miss you every second."

"Me too."

They both knew better than to make claims of not being able to live without the other. Jack had flatly told her once not to lay that on him, not with his history, because he had almost done that to someone once and he wouldn't do it again. He couldn't deal with that kind of pressure. He couldn't be the thing Sam couldn't live without. He needed to know she loved him. He needed to know that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. But he also needed to know that she was strong and resilient and had enough of her own life that she'd survive.

The best part was that he'd never had to explain it to her. She had understood, the way she always understood him.

They stood in silence for a little longer, swaying slightly as if to music only they could hear.

Then they disengaged, slowly, lingering a bit more, reluctant to sever the ability to touch. Jack put his hands on her shoulders and put a chaste kiss on her forehead.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you too."

"Remember what I taught you."

"Don't get caught by the bad guys," Sam said, smiling.

"Hey, it's good advice," he said.

"I'll pass it along."

She looked up at him and her eyes were sad in spite of her smile. They were bluer than the ocean beyond, calm, full of love, _his._ They touched lips in a single, tender, bittersweet kiss and then Sam stepped away from him, far enough that the Asgard beam from the Apollo wouldn't touch him.

They stared at each for one moment longer and then she signaled the Apollo. A familiar whine filled the air and Sam sparkled briefly like the ethereal being that she was. A split second later she was gone.

Jack stood there fighting the hollow ache in his soul. It took a while, because he didn't want Jett to see how much he was hurting. But at last he turned around and made his way back to the house, alone.

(0)


	157. Chapter 157

Sam watched John Sheppard walk out the door with a sad feeling deep inside, one she had a feeling she'd have to get used to. Command was different; she knew that. Sam wanted to tell Sheppard to have faith, to believe, that somehow they would rescue Elizabeth.

At the moment she didn't see how. But she'd had almost the same conversation the last time she and Jack had met in his Pentagon office, the last briefing before she'd left for Atlantis, conducted entirely under the protection of his Asgard anti-surveillance device, and he had given her hope.

"How much pressure can you put on the IOA to get them to let me go after Elizabeth?" she asked.

Jack fiddled with the pencil in his hands for a few more seconds and then looked her in the eyes. "None. They won't discuss it. I've been down that dead-end road with them a few times now."

"We don't leave people behind, Jack," Sam said, through slightly clenched teeth. "You taught me that. You made us live by that."

"I know."

"So what's going on?"

"I'm not entirely in charge of this thing," he replied, looking grim. "Someone thought it would be a good idea to form a committee."

"Since when has that stopped you?" Sam asked.

"It hasn't, but it's slowed me down," Jack answered. "It may not stop Sheppard for very much longer though."

Sam blinked. "Are you suggesting he and his team will go rogue?"

"Sheppard's team is composed of one civilian and two aliens. He's the only one we could bring charges against and he might just decide it's worth it."

Sam considered that. It was certainly possible. SG-1 had its own history of going rogue, Jack O'Neill in particular; and thinking of that made her eyes narrow when she looked back at Jack.

"Have you got something going on in the Pegasus Galaxy that I need to know about?"

Jack lifted his eyebrows in question.

Sam leaned forward and folded her arms on his desk. "Don't give me that innocent look. You know exactly what I mean. If you're running a Special Forces operation out of Atlantis then you had better tell me about it, right now."

She'd crossed a line from subordinate straight over into their personal life and they both knew it. But she didn't care. Atlantis was hers now - and Jack hadn't fought that assignment! - and she had a right to know everything that was going on. If it meant pulling every string she had, then so be it.

Jack saw the determination in her eyes. He knew very well who she was talking to at the moment, and it wasn't the sass-master he used as a cover. Sam was talking to the man she knew, intimately, better than anyone knew him. Sam knew that they could tie Jack's hands but they could never stop him from using his head. Jack's return look was level and straightforward. "Not at the moment," he hedged.

"But you intend to?" she pressed.

"It wasn't something I pursued with Elizabeth."

"That's not what I asked. Jack!"

Jack could tell that Sam was starting to lose patience with him – and since she normally had an endless supply of patience with him that wasn't a good thing. He went to his briefcase, opened it and then returned to his desk. He tossed a thumb drive to her and said,

"That's for your eyes only."

Sam picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of her Class B uniform.

"Dare I ask what it is?"

"It's the personnel files of eight people currently assigned to Atlantis. Well, seven who are in Atlantis. One is on the Daedalus, but you can have her the instant you tell me you want her."

"And why will I want her?"

"To set up a Special Forces team, to do things you might not want to tell the IOA about, with my approval, of course. You just can't call it a Special Forces team or actually assign them to anything in particular."

"Like rescuing Elizabeth?"

Jack nodded, soberly. "Like that, yes."

"At least not on paper?"

"Nothing official."

"And these eight people will be okay with this?"

"If I didn't their names wouldn't be on that file. You'll know how to approach them. They can always say no."

So, now, in her new office in Atlantis, Sam took the thumb drive out of her pocket – she hadn't let it out of her sight except to shower since Jack had given it to her, not even during her vacation in the Caribbean – and turned it over in her hand. She had wanted to get on this right away. But first it seemed she was going to be dealing with Ronon Dex, trying to convince him to stay in Atlantis.

But as soon as that was settled, she was putting stage one of her new plans for Atlantis into motion.

(0)


	158. Chapter 158

Katherine Jillian Jackson's first birthday was never intended to be a quiet affair with just immediate family. Besides, the Jackson's the entire SGC had become family. So the event currently in progress in their backyard was the equivalent of a small circus coming to town.

Jack pulled into the open space at the end of the driveway. They had saved it for him, when he went to get Sam at the Base, knowing that getting around with a cast on her leg wasn't the easiest thing in the whole world. She reached for the door handle and then stopped, stunned by the amount of people.

Jack came around to finish pushing the door open for her, already carrying her crutches. He was less shocked by the spectacle. He had been here for the minor theatrical production that had been JD's third birthday back in March. The Jackson's lived a quiet life with hardly any visitors outside of their own immediate friends and family, but when it came to celebrating their children, they pulled out all the stops. Since July was not only Katie's birthday but Daniel's it got even crazier.

She let him help her get out, reaching for his hand and holding it tightly as she tried not to over-balance. She got steady on her single functioning leg and then got the crutches in place. The stairs down into the lower level yard were a beast to navigate and there was no way to do it inconspicuously. The next thing she knew people were gesturing and coming to greet her.

Teal'c and Jillian saw them first and hurried up the slight slope to join them. Jack hovered as Sam got fierce hugs first from Jill and then Teal'c, who hung on just a little bit longer when she let go.

"Oh god I am so glad to see you," Jillian said, "I've missed you so much."

"I know I missed you too," Sam said. "Where's Daniel?"

"In the bouncy castle," Jillian laughed, gesturing towards the wildly colored air-filled castle tethered to the lawn. "He's in there with JD and some of the other kids. JD loves it, but he'll only go in if Daniel's holding him."

"Cameron?" Sam asked.

"In the bouncy castle," Jill replied, grinning a little wider.

"Jett?"

This time when she answered Jack said it in unison with her. "In the bouncy castle."

Sam shot him a surprised look but Jack shrugged. "What? It's a popular spot," then he made a point of looking at the cast on her leg. "No bouncy castle for you."

She smiled and then laughed. "Okay, fine. Where's Vala? Let me guess, in the bouncy castle?"

"Umm, no, actually, Vala's in the pool, holding court with about two dozen of the single guys. They don't stand a chance."

"Oh, shocking!" Sam said. "Can I at least walk to the bouncy castle to see Jett?"

"Nope," Jack answered, "You're going to the first lawn chair we can find and I'll go tell Jett you're here."

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "There is a chaise lounge waiting for you."

"A chaise?" Sam said, pretending to be honored. "Well, if it's a chaise-"

"You better stop talking or Teal'c will carry you," Jack warned.

"No, I can make it," Sam said, moving deliberately passed Teal'c, who was looking bemused. "Let's leave me a little dignity, okay?"

As they made their way down the slope Jack said, "They're all going to want to sign your cast, you know."

"Oh god," Sam sighed.

(0)

He wasn't wrong. Before the hour was out her cast was covered in writing, drawings, and every imaginable kind of sentiment. The outpouring of love was understated. But it was palpable nonetheless.

She looked amazing and Jack was content to sit at the picnic table and watch her. He had his sun glasses on because the instinct to avoid looking directly at her in public was still strong. He'd spent more than a decade training himself not to stare at her unless they were having a conversation to justify it. Then half the time he'd not had to pretend to be stupid. Sam was like looking into the sun. He'd be so blinded by her that he'd lose track of the conversation.

He watched her now like a man who had been dying of thirst and she was water. The sun was bright on her hair and she was rimmed in gold from its rays. She sparkled from the attention, lit from within. Her laughter was carefree, as if just being home and surrounded by the ones who loved her was enough to give her unbridled joy. At the moment Vala was kneeling in the grass beside the chaise drawing an intricate pattern of daisies and hearts in vibrant marker at the top of Sam's cast.

"So what's going on with you and Cam?" Sam asked.

Vala shot her a secretive glance. "Later," she said, "We'll get together and make some margaritas."

"Sounds like a plan," Sam said, because she could tell from Vala's smile that it was going to be a good talk. "Any luck getting Jonas back on SG1?"

"None so far," Vala answered, "His dedication to his home world is admirable but I can't say I understand it. They are still some of the most disagreeable people I've ever encountered. It's hard to believe he's one of them."

"The whole planet can't be jerks," Sam observed. "They just seem to elect them as officials."

"True," Vala said, putting a little swirl on the last green leaf and leaning back to admire her work. It was just above Teal'c's barely legible scrawl and Daniel's neatly printed admonition to get better. She smiled and patted it gently. "There! Perfect."

Jillian joined them at that point, carrying Katie – who was particularly adorable in a blue sundress with little white stars all over it. Sam reached up in invitation and, after a moment's hesitation, Katie leaned forward to tumble into her arms.

"I didn't think she'd remember me," Sam admitted, happily settling Katie on her lap and offering her the brightly-colored teething ring Jillian handed over.

"Daniel Jackson's daughter?" Vala said. "I'm pretty sure she remembers everything."

"Can you hold her for a minute? We're out of ketchup and hot dog buns and the cooler is running out of cans of Pepsi," Jillian asked.

Vala jumped up. "I'll help," she said.

"I'd be grateful! I'm sure I'm never getting Daniel out of the castle."

The two women walked off and Jack found that he was alone with Sam for the first time since they had arrived together.

He took off his sunglasses. His pulse was a little unsteady, just being in her presence again. He swallowed half the beer in the bottle he'd been holding, trying to clear the dryness in his throat.

"So," he said, casually, "anything you want to talk about off the record? It's not like we'll be overheard here."

"Katie's here," she said, pulling on the teething ring and making the links attached to it clatter. Katie made a gurgling noise and banged the ring on Sam's cast.

"Yeah, she's been sworn to secrecy," Jack answered. "I know you're upset about Elizabeth."

"I should have done more. I tried to do more," Sam said, looking off into the distance wistfully. "Those teams we put together, Jack…. They're good. They might be better than Sheppard's team. But we never had a successful simulation of a rescue mission and I won't order people to do something I wouldn't do; and I was never sure that rescuing her was something I'd risk. I am pretty certain she wouldn't have wanted us to try."

"The whole situation sucks," Jack said, summing it up as only he could. "We can't afford to lose good people. She never got the credit she deserved."

"The IOA isn't generous with praise," she observed.

Katie exerted pressure on her tiny little legs and managed to push herself upright on Sam's lap. Sam went from cool professional to giggling aunt in zero point zero two seconds. "Oh, my gosh, look at you, standing up. Who stood up? Who's a big girl? You are!" Katie grinned, gnawing on her teeth ring and wobbling in Sam's firm hold. She babbled something unintelligible and Sam continued to offer her encouragement in the most enthusiastic tone.

Sam would be a wonderful mother, Jack realized. They had Jett and he suspected that she wanted more. It was something they were going to have to talk about, as soon as he got her back from Atlantis permanently.

"You did a nice job setting Woolsey on his ass," Jack observed.

"Hey, language," she said.

"She's one," Jack said, defensively.

"She's Daniel Jackson's daughter."

"Point taken," Jack said, "So you did a nice job setting Woolsey on his fat posterior."

"He had it coming, on behalf of the entire IOA. It's easy when it's not really a job I'm worried about them dismissing me from. I figured you chew him out pretty good if he tried for one thing."

Jack smiled a little wistfully. "I might not disagree with the whole 'getting you dismissed from Atlantis' thing."

Sam shot him a surprised look. "What?" He said, "Since you've been there you've lost your memory, been in danger from the Wraith and the Replicators, broken your leg-"

"I haven't gotten captured by the bad guys," she pointed out.

Jack snorted. "No, you haven't," he admitted.

They didn't get to talk anymore because Daniel came striding up, disheveled and sweating, breathing as if he'd run a marathon. He stopped beside Sam's chaise and collapsed into the grass.

"Bouncy castle too much for you?" Jack asked, casually.

"_You_ go in there and see how long you last," Daniel challenged.

Seeing her father seated in the grass Katie struggled in Sam's grasp, reaching for him eagerly and saying, "Dah!"

"Oh yeah, come here, birthday girl," Daniel said, reaching up and taking her from Sam. He sat her on his lap and put his arms around her.

Coming up behind them with arms full of condiments and bags of rolls, Jillian said, "Sorry, Sam. Katie is picky about who she'll go to and if she sees her Dad no one else will do; not even me."

Jillian put the stuff down on the picnic table and then leaned over to ruffle Daniel's damp hair and kiss him on the forehead.

Sam was watching them with a wistful, misty look in her eyes and when she caught Jack watching her, he winked at her, quickly, before anyone else could see. His expression said _I know and we__'__ll talk about it as soon as we can. Promise._

Sam smiled at him gratefully, eyes full of adoration.

Daniel struggled reluctantly to his feet with his daughter cradled carefully in his arms.

"I think we better cut the birthday cake before this little one needs her nap," he said. "Jill?"

"Probably not a bad idea," Jillian said. "Stay put, Sam. We'll bring it all over here."

Sam started to protest and then stopped. One thing she had learned from command was when to delegate, when to do it herself and when to let others do it for her.

"Sure," she said, settling back. "I'm not going anywhere."

(0)

**A/N: I want to thank everyone who patiently waited for this next installment of Moonlight and Steel. I felt that a complete re-watch of Atlantis season 4 was necessary before diving into it. While watching I discovered something ****–** **I am totally uninspired by SGA, even with Sam there. So I****'****m going to get through her time in Atlantis as quickly as possible and move on to the parts of her life with Jack that I really want to write. I have some good surprises planned, that I think everyone will like; as well as tackling the heartache that is Continuum and then beyond if all goes well. **


	159. Chapter 159

Sam sat in the back of the town car with two official folders in her lap. They were dark blue with the Air Force insignia emblazoned in gold on the front. They contained two new assignments for her to choose from. One was a return to Groom Lake, Nevada and complete control of R&D. The other was a temporary assignment, but it appealed to her more: command of the SGC.

She smoothed the folder on top even though it wasn't wrinkled and looked out the window. She was back on Earth, in the United States – Virginia, to be exact – and she was on her way to the Pentagon. The surroundings seemed dull for some reason and she suddenly realized that she missed the clean and sparkling brilliance of Atlantis.

Jack had sent the car to the airport to get her and bring her to him. She'd only had one day in Colorado Springs to sort out her things and reopen her house. It had been one day too long as far as she was concerned. She had a house in Colorado but her real home was wherever Jack happened to be, and Jett now too. She'd spoken to them both on the phone but it wasn't enough. She couldn't wait to see them.

But before she could see Jack, Colonel Carter had to see General O'Neill. He wanted an answer about her new assignment and she wanted an answer to why she had been so rudely dismissed from Atlantis. Sam and Jack would have to wait.

The car took her straight to the Pentagon and she took herself straight to Jack's office. He didn't stand when she walked in the door and she didn't immediately step inside and shut the door. She kind of thought it was because for a moment, neither of them could move.

When she caught her breath she said, "Sir," and tried to set the tone for their initial reunion, because she was angry and she'd had to suppress the anger and let it stew into something left too long on high heat.

But Jack put his hands on his desk and pushed his chair back, shaking his head.

"No," he said, because it was pretty clear that they were both controlling themselves by the skin of their teeth.

The last time she'd been on Earth there had been a cast on her leg and the weight of Atlantis on her shoulders. Now there was neither and it had been far too long. Not even his Asgard anti-surveillance device would be able to drown out the noise.

Sam blinked because it was not what she had expected, not what she had geared up for. Jack called for the car – his private car, the black escalade he'd bought to run Jett around to hockey practice - to be brought around again and then walked to the door. Sam moved away from him because being in Jack's body space right now was not going to lead to anything workplace-appropriate.

Even so when he brushed past her to get out into the reception room a hot thunder of awareness made her tremble from head to foot.

Once they were in the car, Sam understood. Bucket seats were a really good idea and Jack had to keep both hands on the road and his eyes firmly fixed on the early-morning Arlington traffic. Heart hammering and hands shaking, Sam secured her seatbelt and stared resolutely ahead of her. She was still angry and now it was all mixed up with how much she wanted him. It was best to keep concentrating on the scenery.

But it was as if Jack was a magnet. Her eyes kept straying back to him. Life indoors had faded his normal tan and there were lines around his eyes that she didn't remember from before. But he was tall and broad-shouldered, just as she remembered and his eyes were still deep brown and full of heat and mirth. Silver-white hair was sticking up in little tufts as if he had towel-dried it and then forgotten he had hair. His arms flexed tight in response to his grip on the wheel and she knew the feeling of being held in those arms all too well. His hands were almost white-knuckled but they were Jack's hands – long-fingered, gracefully made, but strong.

He was still Jack O'Neill, the man she had loved for as long as she could remember, and she was going to hit that so hard just as soon as they got to wherever he was taking them. After that she was going to—

It turned out he was taking them to the condo.

"Jett," she blurted out, as they parked the Escalade in the basement garage. She didn't want Jett to walk in on the passionate sex or the equally passionate fight she was pretty sure they were going to have.

"School," Jack said, bluntly, "and he's got a thing after that. He won't be home for hours."

The elevator ride was torture, with neither of them pretending they weren't both thinking about elevator sex and Sam trying to keep "Woolsey!?" somehow clenched behind her teeth.

But if there was one thing that Jack and Sam knew how to do, it was wait. They had waited for years while they – mostly she – sorted out what they wanted and when the waiting had finally been over it had been Jack's doing – uncharacteristically bold and demanding.

The door of the condo had barely closed behind them before she was climbing on him, pushing him back against it as Jack tried to grip her hard in one arm while getting it locked. When he finally got both arms around her and his mouth firmly fixed on consuming hers, the connection was almost savage.

Jack had been thinking only of his big and very lonely bed but if she wanted to start up against his front door, he didn't have any problem with that. Not in the slightest. He needed this. He needed to reassure himself that she was really home. He hadn't been completely certain at times that he was ever going to see her again and it had nearly killed him a few times.

He dragged his mouth away from hers just before the need to breathe overwhelmed them. He kissed along her jaw before stopping at her ear and biting down on the soft skin of her neck just below it.

"You sent me to Atlantis," she ground out, trembling hands wrestling with his belt buckle as she toed out of her shoes.

"I know," he answered.

"I did a good job."

"You did a great job," he corrected. "Thought I lost you," he murmured. "More than once."

Sam groaned acknowledgement, pulling his white shirt out of his waistband so she could claw at his back. "I'm here," she managed to gasp before his hands got under her shirt and she lost the ability to speak. His hands wandered for a moment longer before she found her voice again. Kissing, fingers digging into the skin below the fabric of his shirt, "Why am I here?"

Jack spun them around to push her up against the door, devouring her mouth again, as if he hadn't heard her, as if he had been starving and she was nourishment. She took advantage of the movement to wrap one leg up around his hip. Jack was forced to break the kiss to get her shirt off. He abandoned trying to get it open the conventional way and simply hauled it up over her head. Once it was satisfactorily deposited on the floor he went right back to kissing her.

He knew she had just asked him a question but damned if he could remember what it was. Had she sounded angry? He thought maybe she had sounded angry.

It was madness. They couldn't do this up against the door of the condo. Maybe the bedroom door, but not the front door.

It was so amazing to have her back again, touching him. Sometimes he wondered how he had ever survived the years when they didn't touch, couldn't touch except in rare and very guarded moments. All those long and empty years….

Perhaps it had been for the best because when Sam touched him the way she was now, the world ceased to exist.

"Jack!" she said, sharply, trying to get her other leg around him.

He trailed his mouth over her neck and down, lifting her higher. Her hands clutched at his shoulder and his hair as he shifted them both, intent on her breasts. She gasped in a way that sounded like sobbing when he reached his goal.

"Can we take this into the bedroom?" he asked, breathless. He ached for her.

She nodded and reluctantly slipped out of his grasp, kissing her way down. He had to hold onto her for a moment when her feet touched the ground because she was shaking.

The bedroom seemed as far away as the moon but they made it there, leaving a trail of shoes and clothes forgotten on the floor.

They didn't quite make it to the bed. There was a convenient wall again. But Jack's bad knee chose that moment to make itself known and she felt him wince before he could stop it.

"What?" She was still all mixed up between ravenous desire and the need to vent her frustration over Atlantis and now worry intervened and took precedence over everything else.

"Nothin'," he said, leaning back in for more kissing, reveling in the touch of so much of skin finally against his. No way was he letting this stop because of something as insignificant as a knee he should have replaced years ago. He pressed forward, trying to keep her where she was. "Sam—"

But she twisted out of his grip and ducked under his arms. Jack started to protest. But she swung him around and propelled him towards the bed and Jack was okay with that. The next thing he knew he was landing on his back on the bed, ungracefully scooting up towards the headboard. Sam tackled him before he got there, taking control. The feeling of her body so tantalizingly close was exquisite.

She was going to kill him yet.

Straddling his hips, pressing down, she said, "Why did you bring me back?"

Jack forced his eyes open and looked up into the blue eyes that gave him life. They were blazing, dilated almost to black, full of passion and fury, hot and hungry. She lowered her body, slowly. Slowly. Deliberately. God…. She stopped with her face inches from his, breasts pressing down on his chest.

Jack couldn't even breathe. At the moment she was the hottest fucking thing he had ever seen in his life. He couldn't take his eyes off her. He lifted his hips and got even harder.

"I didn't," he growled. "The fucking IOA flew under the radar with it."

"The President—"

"Is running a reelection campaign. He's been all over the damned country. Atlantis is the last thing on his mind at the moment. It wasn't me, Sam."

Before she could say another word, he levered upward and flipped her over, pushing her down into the bed. Her blazing eyes flew open in shock, as if she had forgotten that he still knew a little bit about physical combat. He caught both her hands and used them to hold her arms up over her head, stopping her from making the same kind of move

"Listen to me," he growled, "I wasn't at any of those meetings. I found out the same way you did and yes, I tracked down Hayes but he didn't seem too upset about it. So I decided I wasn't too upset about it either. Do you want to know why?"

He paused, glaring down into her eyes. "Sam! Do you want to know why?"

She nodded, once, tersely.

"Because I was done having you on the other side of the fucking galaxy. I wanted you back and, goddammit, after all we have been through I am allowed to want you back! I thought maybe – just maybe – you'd be relieved to come back."

Shock flared in her expression. She twisted her wrists and he let her go and when he did, her arms flew up around his neck.

"Is this really what you want to do right now?" Jack demanded, fully prepared to roll off and find his clothes and hash out Atlantis if she said yes. "Argue about your last post? Or do you want to make love, because it's been months and I need to know what you want me to do right now."

"Jack!" She choked on his name and pulled his head down into another kiss.

It wasn't a nice kiss either. It was a take-me-now, mouth-smashing, tongue-lashing, I'm-yours kind of kiss. As an answer it was pretty damned definitive. Her legs slipped open and wrapped around his hips, grinding up like crazy. Panting for oxygen she whispered into his ear. "Jack, dammit, just…please."

He moved and she drove up onto him, hard and fast and sharp, not stopping until she had taken all of him, groaning with pleasure the whole time. Once there she froze, holding him tightly, head thrown back and eyes closed.

Then they were moving together as if time and space had never separated them at all. It was frantic, seeking each other like lightning sought the ground.

"Harder," she said and then gasped and groaned when he complied, driving into her sweet, silky heat. "Just like that, yes, god, Jack."

It made him wild, because she sounded so lost and desperate and enchanted and he was the one making her feel that way. Sam, his Sam, who drove him nuts with love and need, lust and blind devotion all running into one.

She curled forward suddenly, legs clenching, arms tightening around his shoulders, fingernails digging into his back. Face buried in his neck she climaxed, violently. Jack tried to hold back but it had been much too long. He came long and hard, in powerful strokes, his head bent, mouth on her neck, tasting her skin.

"Fuck," he whispered, slumped over her as they gradually came back to earth.

Her muscles were still vibrating, clenching and shivering.

"God, yeah," she agreed, "that was…was…god, Jack…yeah…."

He smiled a little at her post-lovemaking incoherence as he withdrew. She groaned again, not wanting the separation. But he was going to crush her if they stayed that way much longer. He left one arm outstretched, knowing she would summon whatever energy she had left and move closer, using it as a pillow.

She did, sighing. Jack bent his elbow and laced his fingers into her tousled hair.

"Want to fight about Atlantis now?" he asked.

"In a little bit," she answered, drowsily. "Let me catch my breath and try to remember what I was mad about."

Jack huffed out a small laugh. "You do that."

"I missed you," she said.

Jack rolled over and pulled her into his arms. "Yeah. Me too," he said.

(0)


	160. Chapter 160

Just because Jack was spent didn't mean he was going to let up on Sam. He knew her better than that. For the next hour, driven by love and his own selfless generosity, he teased and coaxed and tormented her into an exhausted delirium of pleasure.

She finally fell asleep in his arms after murmuring another I love you on a ragged sigh. He let her sleep, dozing a little beside her but never really letting himself drop into a full sleep. They didn't actually have all afternoon. Jett would be home soon. He was counting on Sam to know that too and it turned out that he wasn't wrong.

A little more than an hour after she fell asleep she woke, stretched and then curled up tighter to him.

"Do we have to get up?" she asked, without lifting her head from his shoulder.

"We should," he admitted. "Jett will be home in a few hours. You still want to talk?"

"Yeah, I do," she sighed.

"There's still a drawer full of your clothes," he reminded her.

She stretched again and ran her hand down his chest, all but purring.

"Shower?" she asked.

"Your stuff is under the sink."

She grinned, kissed his cheek and got out of bed. Jack watched her go with a strong longing in his heart to call her back.

By the time she got out of the shower, dressed in an old pair of jeans and a sweater, Jack had coffee made. He handed her a cup and then leaned back against the counter, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles.

"So," he said, "where do you want to start?"

Sam drank, paced and then stopped across the other side of the kitchen from him.

"Woolsey?" she finally said. The full meaning behind the question was evident in her tone of voice, which was like a fully loaded magazine.

Jack shrugged. "Not my call."

"You're the head of—"

"Homeworld Security," he interrupted, then paused to let that sink in. "The IOA effectively made the argument that Atlantis does not count as the 'homeworld' when making their latest decision."

Sam gaped at him for a moment and then burst out, "Atlantis is going to come apart at the waterline under his command! You've been to Atlantis with him! Everything about it scares the crap out of him. I'm not even sure why he wanted to do it much less why anyone would want to send him."

"Maybe he's just less scared than the rest of them," Jack suggested mildly.

Sam wasn't in the mood for his casual sarcasm, not today.

"There are people living there that I care about, Jack."

"I know," he said. "It's not like I don't care about them too. Look, my hands are pretty tied here but if you want to go back that badly—"

"No," she said, then sighed heavily and put her coffee cup on the counter. She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "Now that I'm home, I want to stay. It's just so frustrating. I feel like there is so much more I wanted to do there."

"I know," he said again. "That doesn't mean there isn't a lot for you to accomplish right here."

She made a rueful face. "R&D in Area 51 again? Wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be the first time around. It's really a whole lot of things that don't work the first 200 times."

"So, temporary command of the SGC?" Jack guessed.

He had tried to keep the hopeful note out of his voice because he didn't want to influence her decision. He had tried very hard to sound casual and indifferent to her choice, only supportive. But she knew him too well. She had followed him for too long and listened to every nuance of his voice for too long.

"That's what you want me to do?" she asked, eyes narrowed, gauging his response.

"I want you to do whatever you want – including fight to return to Atlantis – but if I had anything to say about it, that's where I need you right now. So from a completely selfish point of view, yes, that would be what I want you to do."

"Why?" Sam asked, because she knew perfectly well that Jack didn't do anything without a reason.

"Mostly because it's only temporary. Hank doesn't want to give up the SGC just yet and the Pentagon isn't ready to ask for that. But they do want him on a special task force. So there's a window in which I need someone I can absolutely trust running the SGC. That pretty much means you."

"Daniel—"

"Doesn't want it. I've asked him a few times."

Sam huffed out a laugh. "Daniel always was the one chess piece you couldn't move around the board the way you wanted, not like you've always been able to move the rest of us."

She sounded pissed again and Jack straightened up a little. For one brutal instant he wanted to growl at her to grow up. She'd been in command. She knew what it was like. It was called deployment. It was what leaders did - even the ones who worked with their friends and their loved ones. A lot of times it sucked.

Forcing himself to be patient he said, "I have a job to do and as long as that job is mine, I'll do it the best way I know how. You're still under my command—"

"Yeah, about that," she interrupted and it startled him so much he lost his train of thought entirely.

"What?"

"I've been thinking," she said.

Jack felt a small tingle of alarm. "When are you ever not thinking?" He asked, "Most of the time I can hear you thinking."

"This is serious," she said.

"When is it not?" Jack repeated, sighing and scratching at his hair.

"I've decided that I should resign my commission," she blurted out.

For a moment Jack was too stunned to speak. Sam rushed on in the silence. "We've been waiting for you to retire and I realized in Atlantis that you really don't have to for us to be together. I can. I don't need to be military to go back to Area 51. Most of the personnel there aren't military. I don't even need to be military to command the SGC. That precedent has already been set and it still applies or you couldn't have even asked Daniel. So, I'll resign and you can stay in DC as long as you want and we can still be together—"

She didn't get any further because Jack had crossed the distance between them with more speed than he should still have and pulled her into his arms.

"No," he said, "I don't want to be the reason you give up on your career."

"Even if I want you to be? Isn't it time?"

"You might think you want this now, but—"

"There's a dozen incarnations of me out in those multi-universes who never joined the military! One of them was already married to you! Another was engaged."

"And look how well that turned out for them!" Jack snapped, "and not one of them was you, not the one I know and I have good reason to know that!"

The slight edge of pain in his voice brought her up short. Jack never wanted to deal with any of their other incarnations – not the robots, not the ones from alternate universes, not the clone. He wanted to concentrate on them, on who they were in the Universe he was trying to protect. Bringing up the others had been a tactical error on her part.

"Jack," she said, quietly, "it's my decision."

He squeezed her once and let her go. "I know," he said, "but before you make it, there's something you should know that might factor into it."

"What?" she asked, instantly alert.

"Come with me," he said.

It sounded like a command and for a moment Sam hated herself for obeying it so unquestioningly. But she was driven by her curiosity as much as anything else. They went to his office, where he shut and locked the door, even though they were alone in the house.

Then he tossed his briefcase on the desk, keyed the combination lock and took a thumb drive. Opening his laptop he quickly typed in the password and inserted the drive.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Come open it and find out," he said, offering her the chair.

Sam gave him another narrow-eyed look but complied. The drive contained the specifications for the latest X-304 and for a moment Sam was too intrigued by the upgrades and advancements being worked into the design to wonder why Jack was showing it to her.

"I don't have to be military to help build a 304 either. There are lots of civilian personnel working on it."

"I don't want you to work on it," Jack said.

She threw him a frustrated look before returning her attention to the screen. "So, what, you need help picking out the next Greek god we're going to name it after?"

"No," Jack actually smiled a little. "Besides, we're not naming it after a god this time; not a Greek one anyway."

"Then what does this have to do with me? You want to assign me to it?"

"I don't want to just assign you to it," Jack said. "I want you to command it."

There was very little that could make Sam speechless. But this did. Jack enjoyed it for possibly longer than he should.

"You pretty much should still be military to do that," he said, calmly.

Sam looked from him to the screen and back again a few times before finally finding her voice.

"What about us?"

"Believe it or not, I am going to retire," he said, "and would things really be so different? Are things really so bad right now?"

She shook her head, "No, they aren't. This…this is an incredible honor, Jack. I don't know what to say."

"Say yes," he encouraged.

"I have a habit of doing that with you."

"You want this. I know you do."

Sam stood up and went to him, standing on tiptoe to wind her arms around his neck.

"Yes," she said, touching her lips lightly to his.

Jack grinned a little. He waited a moment to see if she was going to try to apologize for being angry, because he was prepared to cut her off at the knees if she tried. She had every right to be angry about how all of that had gone down. He felt a surge of pride when it became obvious that she wasn't going to utter another sound.

"Good," he said.

He kissed her lightly again and then asked, "Would you like to go pick up Jett at hockey practice? Surprise him?"

"Oh I'd love that!" she said, genuinely pleased. "But did you ask me that just to get another yes out of me?"

Jack grinned and said, "Ya betcha," before bringing her into a kiss so deep that conversation was no longer possible.

(0)


	161. Chapter 161

Jack had not expected, when he submitted his paperwork for retirement, that it would result in being summoned to the White House for a meeting with the President. He was prepared to say anything to get what he wanted, even the truth, if that's what it would take.

He'd worn his dress blues because that was required when meeting with the President of the United States. This time he didn't mind because maybe the seemingly endless rows of bars and ribbons would remind the guy just what this country owed General Jack O'Neill.

His ID got him into the White House with no problem. He had a single escort who took him efficiently in the direction of the Oval Office, but stopped and ushered him into the President's small private study instead.

That suited Jack. It was less formal this way, in spite of the way he was dressed.

Hayes was sitting at the desk, on the phone. His suit jacket was hanging on the back of his large leather chair and he had his shirt sleeves rolled up. He waved Jack into one of the dark blue upholstered chairs and held up a finger to indicate that he's be done in a minute.

Jack sat and politely didn't pay any attention at all to what was being said. He was well trained enough to figure out a conversation even if he only heard one side of it. But it didn't seem like something he should do to the President.

At last Hayes hung up and then turned around with an eye roll and a sigh, shaking his head.

"Campaign manager," he said, with a jerk of his head towards the phone. "It never stops."

"I'm just impressed you want this job again, sir," Jack said, sincerely.

"Stupid, huh?" Hayes answered with a cocky grin.

"What did you want to talk to me about, sir?" Jack said, since he knew by now that neither one of them was much for small talk, a trait he respected in his current Commander-in-Chief.

"This retirement thing you requested," Hayes began, musingly. "Are you serious about this? Because I have to tell that I'm not really ready to let you go."

"Well the thing is, sir," Jack said, trying not to sound as if there was a challenge in this. "I'd kind of like to get married. I've kind of wanted to get married for, oh…years, and have had to keep putting it off. Things are quiet now. I think we could bring in someone new without a problem."

Hayes regarded him frankly and then leaned back his chair. "You know, Jack, there isn't actually anything in your current job description that says you can't be married."

"Well, sir," Jack said, slowly, "it's not in my job description as Head of Homeworld Security. It's in the other one, the military one. Not that I can't be married - just that I can't be married to certain women."

Hayes was a smart man. His eyes as they focused on Jack were bright with intelligence and he made the connection immediately. "So this woman is in your chain of command?"

"Yes, sir," Jack answered and then held his breath, hoping the President wouldn't say her name, because he wouldn't lie. He wouldn't deny it. Jack had worked hard building a relationship of mutual respect with Hayes and he wouldn't jeopardize that. He'd had more than a decade of putting duty before desire and the idea of endangering Sam in any way was anathema to him. He had never cared what came down around his own head. But Sam…Sam he would protect with his last breath of life.

But Hayes just continued to regard him in the same shrewd, measuring way.

"So, say I let you retire," he said finally. "Do you have any objections to continuing to work for me in the same capacity?"

"What?" Jack asked.

"You can retire from the military and still head up Homeworld Security," Hayes informed him. "There's nothing in that job description that states it has to be someone in any branch of the armed services."

Now it was Jack who sat back, looking thoughtful. "It doesn't?"

"Nope," Hayes said. "I can appoint anyone I want. All it needs is the approval of the IOA and they can't disprove of a man who's already been doing the job practically as long as the job has existed."

Jack stared at the President, because he was very rarely caught off guard by anything.

"Who wrote the job description that way?" he asked.

There was a boyish mischief to their current Commander-In-Chief that had always appealed to Jack. It seemed like a mirror to his own irreverent humor. That light glinted now in Hayes' eyes. A grin was barely contained around the edges of his mouth.

"The IOA," he said.

Jack clamped down hard on the burst of laughter that wanted to erupt. He managed to turn it into an exhale and a sharp cough.

"Really?" he said, with a deep sense of satisfaction.

The two men eyed each other in a moment of pure satisfaction at hoisting the IOA on its own petard.

"So, sir," Jack began, "does this mean I can consider myself retired?"

"I think it does," Hayes nodded.

"Then with your permission," Jack said, standing, "I'll be going. I have a wedding to plan."

Hayes waved a hand at the door. "Go on, get out of here. Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir," Jack said, with more profound gratitude than he had ever felt in his life.

"Pass it on to the lucky girl, too," Hayes said.

Jack nodded. "Yes, sir. I will."

(0)


	162. Chapter 162

The first time Sam and Jack had to cancel their wedding it was because Jett's brother Garan was badly injured in an accident at the printing press where he worked. Jack had gone to Edora immediately to get him and bring him back and Sam understood, even though Jack was supposed to be standing under an arbor with her in the park in front of a minister and fifty of their closest friends.

Several days had passed with Garan on life support in the infirmary and Jack and Jett living at her house when they weren't at the SGC.

Once Garan had been back on his feet and well enough to return home, Sam and Jack had tried again. This time they had planned something at a hall for rent in Colorado Springs, since winter was coming, making an outdoor wedding impossible.

That wedding was postponed when Daniel disappeared in the Pegasus Galaxy. Sam and Jack had put everything on hold, contacted Teal'c and were preparing to go look for Daniel themselves when word came that he'd been found – safe if not entirely sound.

With Sam's time at the SGC coming to a close, they had planned a late May wedding in the chapel at Peterson. Everything had been going as hoped until the morning of May 22, when an F3 tornado touched down in the county just north of them and turned the entire place into a Federal Disaster Area. The SGC and Peterson personnel were immediately in motion to render aid, which had Sam on her feet and at the scene for almost 48 hours. The morning of May 26th, when she had been supposed to be getting married, Jack had finally found her sound asleep, curled up uncomfortably in the back seat of a Humvee.

It seemed that their extended family and Mother Nature were all conspired against them. When they had finally been able to withdraw from Windsor Jack had tried to talk her into flying to Las Vegas for the weekend. But Sam had been reluctant. She wanted her friends and family around her, all the people who had stood by them and kept their secret for so long. Since it had only been a half-hearted attempt on Jack's part he dropped the issue.

It was now the second week of June and Sam was sitting at the big desk in the office of the SGC, trying to write a final report of her time as its commander, when Vala flounced in the door unannounced. She put her hands on the desk and leaned over to read the laptop screen upside down.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Writing a report," Sam said, trying not to look up, trying to ignore her and concentrate on getting the blasted thing finished.

"Hit save," she said, having learned her lesson about that feature the hard way.

"What?"

"Hit save," she insisted.

Sam looked up with a fiercely sweet smile on her face. "You do know I'm the Base Commander for another three days? Yes?"

"I know," Vala said, with wide-eyed sincerity, as if thwarting Sam's authority was the last thing she'd consider doing. "Hit save. You're coming with me."

"What?" Sam said, sitting back and regarding her with frank shock. "Vala, I can't. I have a million things I have to do!"

In the middle of Sam's protest, Vala had moved around, pushed her chair out of the way, hit save and closed the laptop.

"Vala!" Sam said.

"Up," Vala said, taking her by the hand and hauling her to her feet. "You've been stuck in this office for two weeks. I doubt you've gone home at all since the tornado. We're getting out of here."

"I can't!" Sam said.

"Yes you can," Vala said. She put a hand between Sam's shoulder blades and shoved her towards the door. As they marched through the door into the Briefing Room and down the stairs, she shouted, "Walter!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Here! Catch!" Then she tossed Harriman Sam's cell phone. "Colonel Carter is currently occupied at the highest possible level."

"Yes, ma'am," Walter said.

"Hey!" Sam said, "How did you get that?"

"Really?" Vala asked, still herding Sam towards the elevator and freedom. "I'm a thief, darling. I thought you'd figured that out by now."

Sam was still sputtering all the way up to the main floor and Vala had to force the pen into her hand to get her to sign out. On the way to the car she said,

"You know you really _do_ want to come with me, you know."

"No, I do not," Sam replied.

"You haven't tried very hard to get away," Vala pointed out.

Sam glowered at her and then yanked open the door of Vala's shiny red sports car and slouched into the passenger seat. She clicked the seatbelt and then folded her arms across her chest and stared straight at the window, refusing to speak again.

Vala smiled happily, as if she hadn't a care in the world. The next thing Sam knew they were speeding down the Interstate with a hard rock station playing on the radio.

"You want the top down?" Vala asked.

"No," Sam said, still feigning grumpiness. The truth was she was starting to enjoy herself a little bit. The taste of freedom was tantalizing. Leave it to Vala to figure out what she needed. "Vala, where are we going?"

She only got a flash of bright smile and flippant, "You'll see," as an answer.

Whatever Sam had been expecting it was not taking the exit that would bring them to the main Gate at Peterson. She had also not expected to see Vala show both their ID's to the guard. She took hers back with an exasperated sigh but Vala was still smiling like the cat in the middle of the cream.

Vala drove to the Chapel and pulled into a parking space conveniently open right by the front walk. She killed the engine and pocketed the keys.

"Vala, why are we here?" Sam asked, warily.

"Well," Vala said, turning to look straight at her. "You want to marry General O'Neill, don't you?"

"Yes," Sam said, shortly.

"He's waiting inside," Vala said, "along with all your friends and relatives. All I have to do is get you into that little room on the side so you can get dressed. Jillian is supposed to be in there with all of your stuff."

Sam was temporarily struck dumb. She stared at Vala, trying to get her mouth to work. Finally she managed to squeak, "Jack? How?"

"Daniel went to get him this morning. He told him you needed him at once, something urgent. He wasn't wrong. They came by Asgard beam from the Apollo, I think. Not sure of the details. My job was to get you here – I _am _after all your maid of honor - and I did it!" She smiled broadly, obviously pleased with herself.

"Come along, darling!" Vala said, airily, reaching for her door handle and getting out of the car. "You're about to get married."

(0)


	163. Chapter 163

Inside the small room at the back of the Chapel, Sam and Vala found Jillian, who hugged Sam and waved away her questions.

"We'll tell you everything at the dinner, afterwards," she said, "Start getting dressed so we can do your hair."

"Dinner?" Sam said, then she frowned at Vala's attempts to get her shirt off. "I can undress myself. I'm a big girl."

"Of course there's a dinner," Vala said, making one more attempt to help Sam.

"Vala," Jillian intervened, "_Your _dress is over there. If you want to help someone get dressed, how about starting with yourself?"

Jillian pointed to the hooks on the wall. Vala's deep copper colored dress was hanging next to the cream-colored silk that was Sam's.

"How did you get those? They were at my house!" Sam wanted to know.

"Sweetheart, we have keys to each other's houses," Jillian reminded her. "I went this morning and got them. We all knew you were staying on the Base. I got the rings too. So don't worry about that; and Teal'c is standing by to make a run for anything we might have forgotten."

"Teal'c?" Sam had gotten her shoes off by then and was starting to mechanically strip. "How did he get here? He'd have had to come through the Gate and no one and nothing gets through that Gate without me knowing it."

"He Gated from Hak'tyl to the Beta Site and then came through with the transfer of personnel yesterday," Vala said blithely. She was already shimmying into the copper silk.

Sam gaped at them for a moment and then got into motion again when Jillian prodded her. "We only have the Chapel for another hour," she said, "Let's go."

Jillian was already in the apricot silk dress they had picked out way back when the wedding was supposed to be in the fall. Like Vala's, it was long, with a flowy skirt and fitted top. It had once had a darker sash around the waist but that was gone in favor of a similar one in ivory. Glancing at Vala, Sam saw that her dress now had the same color sash. The transformation took the dress from being perfect for Fall to looking like orange sherbet with a small scoop of vanilla on a warm Summer day.

"Who changed out the sashes?" She asked.

"I did," Jillian said, then hesitated, "It's all right, isn't it?"

"Yes, they look perfect," Sam said.

Then, as she stepped into the lightweight slip she had to wear under her wedding dress she noticed the flowers. There were 3 bouquets on the table – one mostly white with splashes of orange and peach, the other two peach and copper. Jillian was already wearing a spray of flowers in her hair, no doubt attached to a barrette of some kind.

Vala had dressed in record time and was in front of the mirror strategically placing her own hairpiece.

"Where did the flowers come from?" Sam asked.

"They're all silk, I'm afraid," Vala said, "It seems two weeks' notice isn't enough for most florists. I made them."

Sam stared at her in complete incomprehension for a moment. Her brain was not working at all now.

"The bouquets and the hair pieces, not the flowers," Vala explained, not understanding Sam's confusion, "The flowers are from Michael's Craft Store."

"You guys did all this in two weeks?" Sam asked in quiet amazement.

"Well of course we did, darling," Vala said as she fussed a little bit more with her hair, making sure every strand was perfect, "After that 'third time is the charm' thing didn't work, we were all tired of waiting. I know _you _must be tired of waiting. So here we are."

When she was satisfied she gave her own reflection a saucy grin and then whirled around to start taking Sam's dress out of the bag.

It was sleeveless with a ruched bodice and a skirt that fell away in long heavy waves of silk and chiffon. It had a dark copper sash around the waist that fell off to the side in two long ribbons. Vala gathered the skirt and Sam raised her arms so she could put it over her head.

A few adjustments and the dress was perfect. Vala put her hands on Sam's shoulders and propelled her to the chair in front of the mirror.

"Hair and makeup," she said, "Let's see." She gathered the long strands of Sam's hair and piled it up. Experimentally she held it there and wrapped the band of Sam's headpiece around it. The flowers on the band landed in the center of her head, with the simple veil falling away behind the upsweep.

"Looks perfect," Jillian said.

"Yes?" Vala asked, holding Sam's eyes in the mirror.

"Yeah," Sam said, still overwhelmed.

"Great." Vala let go of the whole thing and let it fall again.

There was a bag on the table and when she dumped it out an array of makeup, brushes and sparkling hair clips fell out.

"I'll go see how the guys are doing," Jillian said.

Before she had the door into the Chapel opened all the way, Sam said, "Jill, wait. I….. I can't even begin to tell you both what this means to me…. I can't believe you did this. I don't know how to say thank you."

"You can thank us by having a spectacular life with Jack," Jillian said, "No one deserves that more than the two of you."

Sam smiled and her eyes got misty.

"All right, if you're going to cry do it now – before I get to your makeup," Vala instructed. But her voice was husky, as if she might just be thinking about crying too.

"I have the best friends in the world," Sam said.

"Of course you do," Vala said, as she began pinning Sam's hair. "You deserve them too."

(0)


	164. Chapter 164

Jack was tying his bowtie for the tenth time, trying to get it right. It had been a long time since he had worn one. His dress blues didn't have a bowtie. But he had decided that if Sam wasn't wearing her dress blues then he wasn't wearing his either. He was proud of his military service. But it seemed somehow out of place to wear the symbol of the one thing that had kept them apart for so long on the day they were promising to be together forever.

Daniel finished with Jett's bowtie, straightened the boy's jacket and dusted some imaginary lint off the shoulders.

"There," he said, "You look great."

Jett rolled his eyes. "When can I take it off?" He asked.

Jack looked at Jett, wondering when the kid had gotten so tall. "When I say you can," Jack said, though not harshly. He was grinning. "You wear more than that tending goal for your hockey team."

"I don't feel like I'm being choked tending goal," Jett replied, running a finger around his collar. "Are you sure Sam is going to like this?"

"She'll love that you did it for her," Daniel assured him.

Jett frowned but nodded. "Okay."

"Besides, there's going to be cake," Jack said.

"Really?" Jett perked up noticeably.

Daniel grunted and shook his head. "Like father like son," he said.

The knock on the door interrupted them and Jillian's voice called, "Daniel? How's it going in there?"

He opened the door and let her come in. She found 3 men wearing black suits and looking quite dashing.

"Nice," she smiled, eyeing Daniel.

"Is she here?" Was it possible Jack sounded a little anxious?

"Of course she's here," Jillian answered.

Daniel gave Jack a wondering look. "I got you here from 2000 miles away. You didn't think we could get Sam here from right down the Interstate?"

"She's got a lot to do," Jack said, spreading his hands defensively. "I thought you might have to knock her out."

"Well, she's going to need an extension on all of that paperwork," Daniel said, "because she's going to be in the Caribbean on her honeymoon."

"Caribbean?" Jack repeated.

"My family's beach house," Jillian said, "It's yours for a week. Our wedding present."

"Sweet!" Jett said, happily.

"Oh no, Shortstop," Daniel said, "_You_ will be staying with us."

"Awww," Jett whined.

Daniel wrapped an arm around Jett's neck and hugged. "Cheer up. I'm sure we can find something for you to do. You don't mind helping to change diapers do you?"

"Oh gross!" Jett winced and Daniel laughed and let him go. Jett looked at Jack, "Can I stay with Cameron instead?"

Jack cocked his head. "Cameron still living with Mal Doran?"

"Yep," Daniel said.

"Then, that a big box of 'nope'," Jack answered.

"Awww," Jett said again.

Daniel ruffled the kid's hair, which didn't hurt it at all. Jett's hair was a perpetual riot of curls and grew faster than it could be cut.

"If you guys are ready, I'll go tell Sam," Jillian said. "We don't have the Chapel for much longer."

Daniel and Jack shared a silent, communicative look. "We're ready," Daniel said. "Tell Sam we'll see her at the altar."

(0)


	165. Chapter 165

It didn't register as real until she walked out of the little room with Vala and Jillian and saw Jack standing at the end of the very short aisle, waiting for her. Then the reality was suddenly so vivid that she actually faltered. Sam Carter – who didn't flinch in the face of deadly enemies – was so overwhelmed that she couldn't move for a moment.

"Sam?" Vala asked, because by now Vala knew every nuance of the way Sam moved and yet she had never seen her freeze.

"This is real," Sam said.

"Very real," Vala assured her with a gentle smile.

Later Sam would take note of all the people they had somehow managed to gather from the vast reaches of the galaxy – Mark and his wife, Teal'c, Jonas and his wife, Cameron, most of her extended family, people from Cheyenne Mountain that she had thought were still working, General Hammond, General Landry…..

But in that moment when she saw Jack waiting for her, all she could see was him.

There was sunlight pouring through the big round stained glass window above the altar. It framed Jack, gilded him, making a halo of his silvered hair. He seemed to be burning with his own inner light. Sam's heart lurched into motion again. The need to marry him _now_ shook her from head to foot so hard that she visibly trembled. Vala reached out a steadying hand but then someone must have signaled the music. Before she could touch her, Sam had turned and nodded anxiously.

"Go," she said.

Jillian and Vala exchanged head-shaking looks and then Jillian started down the aisle, followed a few beats later by Vala and then Sam (all of which they accomplished with military precision and the practice of being long time team mates, since there had been no rehearsal to speak of.)

It seemed to Sam that it took an eternity to reach the end of that aisle, as if the time it took was somehow equal to the endless years it had taken to get to this point; and in other ways it seemed like she flew towards Jack at a speed designed to shatter the sound barrier.

He reached for her hand before she was even really close enough to grasp his. But when she did, it was sure and steady. They could feel each other's pulse pounding in joy and shared a look and a smile that excluded everyone else in the room but the two of them.

But then Sam realized Jett was there and she reached in front of Jack and got a hold of Jett, bringing him to stand – not off to the side – but between them, _with_ them. They weren't creating a married couple today. They were creating a family. Jett looked surprised but then grinned up at them happily.

For Sam and Jack it had never really been about the wedding. It was about the marriage. It was about being together, finally and forever, out in the open. For Sam it was about ending a lifetime of the 'wrong guy', stumbling through relationships that seemed incomprehensible even to her when she looked back on them. This was about Jack, about finally being with her soul mate and in comparison, she'd just really not been all that worried about the flowers.

For Jack it was about finding out all his dreams really could come true, when he had been willing to give them up for so long, if only because it seemed like that was what Sam wanted.

So they didn't care if the whole thing seemed to have been thrown together. All that mattered was that it was happening. They hadn't written any special vows or worried about things like the music. They hadn't bugged any of their friends about singing or reciting poetry or giving speeches. They were content to let the minister lead them in traditional vows, the only change being that they were asked to say, "I will" instead of "I do."

Sam spoke clearly and with conviction as she answered the question of whether she would take Jack from that day forward, cleaving only to him. Jack's voice was a little husky as he replied in kind.

Their rings were likewise simple bands of gold with their entwined initials etched on the inside. The minister presided over them for a moment and said,

""A wedding ring is a symbol of commitment; a promise, a pledge, and a vow. The promise is to forsake all others, to stay devoted and true; the pledge is to honor that promise selflessly, to see the whole thing through; and the vow is to keep that pledge unwaveringly, until the days are few. It is a mutual agreement to become one instead of two."

It seemed to Sam and Jack that had been one for as long as they could possibly remember. Sam's hand was shaking as Jack slipped hers onto the third finger of her right hand, snugging it up against the engagement ring he had given her. Jack seemed quietly stunned when she returned the gesture, sliding the ring on and squeezing his hand as she did. It had been over a decade since he had worn a wedding ring. He flexed his fingers for a moment and then looked from the ring to Sam with satisfied wonder on his face.

The minister pronounced them husband and wife but almost before he had finished the words, Jack and Sam both spoke in the same certain voice,

"And son."

They shared a startled look, to be so in sync already, so determined to make Jett a part of this. Their gathered friends and family laughed and broke into a soft round of applause. Jett grinned even more broadly. Sam and Jack kissed, gently, a brief brush of lips at first and then it got a little more serious and the congregation cheered again. They broke off with an embarrassed laugh, because this whole thing where they got to be honest in public was still a little new. Then Sam bent over and kissed the top of Jett's head and Jett gave her a shy little hug.

The music flared into something triumphant. The congregation stood and applauded. Jack and Sam each took one of Jett's hands and walked back down the aisle. Vala and Daniel came together behind them and shared a high five and fist bump before holding hands. Daniel reached for Jillian's hand and they followed Jack, Sam and Jett out of the chapel as a trio.

They stopped in the small foyer of the Chapel and graciously hugged and shook hands with all their guests, laughing, joking, caught up in the excitement of it finally being true. Then they walked out under a shower of rice.

Then they posed for at least a hundred pictures taken by Jonas Quinn and finally they got taken to a town car, where Cameron was waiting to take them to the Officer's Club for a dinner reception.

They settled into the backseat and it was the first time they had been alone since the whole thing started (if they ignored Cameron at the wheel, at least.)

Jack stared at her for a moment, trying to gauge her state of mind. Her eyes were shining and there was rice stuck in her hair.

"Happy ending?" He asked, quietly.

Sam's smile was more brilliant than a million stars. She wrapped her arms around his neck and said, "No. This is just the beginning."

(0)


	166. Chapter 166

Sam decided early into the reception that this was the best part of the wedding. She heard the laughter and the voices of her friends and family swirling around her and it was better than the ceremony, better than Jack's clear voice saying 'I will', better than the cake and the first dance as husband and wife. It was this happy downtime without the spotlight shining on them and everyone relaxed and happy around them.

Daniel had given a speech, of course, that had made her tear up a little, using a quote from Kahlil Gibran.

"_Let there be spaces in your togetherness," _Daniel quoted, in his rich voice_, "And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow._

"Sam and Jack, we waited a long time to get the two of you here. I know everyone in this room is happier for you than we can put into words. So I'd like everyone to raise their glasses to the two of you. May today be just the beginning of a wonderful, new chapter of your lives, and may you always love, honor and cherish each other, just as you always have."

Daniel lifted his glass of champagne and said, "To Sam and Jack."

His gesture was repeated around the room and glad voices echoed, "Sam and Jack."

They dined and visited with friends and laughed at old stories. They danced with each other and with everyone else. They cut the cake and didn't smoosh it into each other's faces.

Then Vala and Cam took charge, ordering them to say goodbye. After hugging everyone and Jett last of all and most fiercely, they were driven first to Sam's so she could pack for the Caribbean. Cam disappeared at some point and they later found him on board the _Jarret O'Neill_. He beamed them up – minus Vala- set them down at Jack's condo and then when Jack was ready, he put them down again on earth, in the living room of the beach house, where a fruit basket was waiting for them on the table. There was a note that offered best wishes from Jillian's family and a soft breeze blowing in off the ocean.

They were alone, finally, as husband and wife.

Much later Sam reached for the tangled white sheet at the end of the bed and got up, wrapping it around her body, under her arms, as she did. She walked over to the window, the white material swirling around her feet as she walked. Jack watched her, one arm propped up on his hand, grinning to himself like the lovesick fool that he was. He got up, carelessly pulling on his discarded boxers, and joined her to look out at the moonlit ocean.

Standing behind her, he put his arms around her and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"I do," he whispered.

She gave him a questioning, sideways look. But then she glanced down at the white sheet wrapped around her like a wedding gown and giggled. "You already said that."

"No, we said, 'I will'," he reminded her, "in sickness and in health, better or worse…."

"'Til death do us part?" Sam asked.

But Jack shook his head, turning her around as he did. "No. Way longer than that," he said, just before kissing her lips. "Forever."

(0)


End file.
